Chasing Phantoms
by czaaritsa
Summary: AU A/H. Daniel Fenton is an agent for the FBI's homicide division. He's good at his job, and fighting bad guys with Tucker Foley and his boss Kim Possible seems to be enough, but when a Samantha Manson joins the team, the killers get more dangerous, and secrets from his past are dragged out, what will happen to his world as he knows it? What if the phantoms we chase are within us?
1. You Can't Save Everyone

Daniel Fenton, an ex-Baltimore cop, joins the FBI homicide division. He loves his job, and fighting bad guys with Tucker Foley and his boss Kim Possible seems to be the thing he loves most, but when a Samantha Manson joins the team, what will happen to his world as he knows it?

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Chasing Phantoms

Part I: Mad World

Chapter One: You Can't Save Everyone

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5:30 am. In another room, an alarm clock blared angrily on a side table, the flashing green numbers trying to take attention away from the unslept-in bed. Twenty paces away, on an old orange couch with the fabric fraying on the corners, stirred a man. Getting up groggily, he stretched upwards and cracked his back, twisting it right, then left. He cursed under his breath at the unforgiving garage-sale couch. Mussing his hair, he yawned hugely and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

In the kitchenette, he turned on the fluorescent light that flickered and glowed and eerie yellow before strengthening to a dim white. He swept bits of rice off of the counter, removing the three-day old accumulation of takeout boxes sitting next to the sink, gently tossing them into a trashcan under the cabinet. Reaching in an upper cabinet he removed a stack of coffee filters, a plastic portable coffee mug, and the strongest Columbian grind he had in his stash. Mechanically, the filter was put into the aging, once-white coffee-maker, the grind placed in the filter, and the water poured in. After three attempts, the pot stirred to life, and began to put out a jet black liquid drop by drop.

Satisfied, the man tousled his raven hair again and walked thirty paces to the bathroom of his aging apartment, shedding a wrinkled button down, singlet, black slacks, underwear and socks and tossed them into the hamper by the door that was already threatening to overflow from a week's worth of unwashed clothing. The water in the shower was turned on and his platinum watch was shed, a small silver cross on a chain following it. He stepped into the shower, grabbing his toothbrush and toothpaste on the way, the still-cool water rousing him fully from sleep. The warming water turned hot and relaxed his sore muscles, but he made a mental note not to be so angry with his couch.

Within five minutes his hair was clean and smelled faintly of sandalwood, his face shaven, the smell of yesterday's takeout and strength and agility training gone from his smooth skin. He dried himself, wrapping a towel around his waist and walked out of the bathroom, cursing again as the cool apartment air hit his skin, still hot from the shower. In the bedroom, he pulled on a fresh singlet and button down, and took the rest of his clothing from the drawer, dressing on the way to the old coffee pot on the counter.

He fumbled with the black tie, but when he finished tying it, the coffee had dripped to the two-cup line. _Damn old thing, _he thought, _poor baby is 10 years old…about time to get a new one. _Immediately he felt guilty. The old pot had been with him since college, and he just couldn't let the old thing go. He poured the coffee carefully into the plastic cup, still wincing at the memory of last week's burn. He tightened the lid and turned around to pull a bagel out of the yellowing fridge.

Grabbing both, he walked out of the kitchen, and placed them on the table next to the front door. He lifted a leather holster off of a hook and pulled it over his shoulders, the chestnut straps running over his collar bone and under his arms, and over it he put on a black jacket. A leather ID, badge, and keys were slipped into his pants pocket. Walking out of the front door with coffee and bagel in hand, he picked up the morning paper that lay on top of the row of mailboxes outside the apartment; his cerulean eyes flashed at the headline running across the front page.

Quarter to seven, the elevator doors opened and the man hurriedly rushed out into the hallway, veering left – a full fifteen minutes late to work. Cursing the early morning D.C. traffic, he shuffled through the maze of interns carrying copied papers, men, women, milling about with thick filing folders, their faces busied with their own early morning work. He briskly walked down the hallway, past conference rooms and private offices before turning right through an open door-space in a large glass panel to come upon a large space.

Here was different than the rest of the building. The eyes of the people here were different. Their eyes were hardened, sad, but passionate, like soldiers on a battlefield. In the second of four bullpens, he found his desk. It was not exactly difficult to discern his desk from everyone else's'. The giant NASA poster of an astronaut tacked up on the soft panel that cradled his desk space gave it away. He usually turned his chair around after sitting down to look at it, but today, he sat down without even giving it a glance. He slammed the paper down in anger and sadness, and closing his eyes, he rested his head in his hands, sighing in sudden exhaustion.

"Trust me honey, I know. But next time, try not to be late for the fourth time in two weeks," said a distinct female voice.

Recognizing it immediately, he glanced up, and with a dead sort of look in his eyes replied, "Oh God Val, what are we going to do?" He looked hopeless. "I've been here for two months, and now three people are dead," he paused for a second, his breath rattling, "I feel like I'm not going my job." The woman named Val looked at him, her eyebrow arching above her teal eyes. She knew when people started to talk like that. They talked like that when they were giving up. The man sighed and nodded, and with a renewed glint of determination in his blue eyes, he adamantly responded, "I never said I was giving up." _That kid maybe clueless_, she thought, _but he sure is perfect for the job_.

"Not what I was going to say at all, Agent Daniel Fenton," she said with a sassy smirk on her face, "I was gonna say that I am your superior, and should the director walk into this God-forsaken Homicide Division, I better be called Special Agent Grey."

With a wink over her shoulder, she walked out of the bullpen, swinging her hips, just as a fiery haired woman walked in. A giant pile of official-looking files in her hand, she walked with agility and confidence, her tight green slacks and black turtleneck revealing both a disdain for the dress code and a hardened physique, despite her age in comparison to the agent at the desk.

"Morning Daniel, you're late," she greeted him, slapping the thinnest file on his desk, taking the desk diagonal from his. He groaned at the official-looking file on his desk, knowing it meant that the newest victim had been deferred to them, knowing it meant lots of homework for the night. Just because he was late for work again, he knew that she would pick on him all morning until she felt he had done enough work to make up for it. But no agent wanted the case they were working on, so their team was stuck with the most difficult case in three years.

"Daniel, I want that file read in an hour, and at eight sharp I want you to have everything pulled up on this victim, see if it matches the others. Autopsy should have the time of death by then, and cause…well, the cause is all over the front page, isn't it? Tucker is running financials and phone records for red flags." She waltzed out of the bullpen with purpose. The serial killer they were dealing with was not any closer to being caught, and Daniel sure as hell didn't want to think about him being out in the open.

"Kim…?" Daniel groaned. She stopped for a second and looked back at him.

"He won't get away with this much longer," she said softly, her emerald eyes blazing, like a soldier before a battle. Agent Daniel Fenton nodded back, determination in his eyes.

The red-haired agent walked back into the bullpen at precisely eight to find an African-American sitting at the desk next to Daniel's, typing hurriedly away on his Blackberry. Daniel was nowhere to be found. The white-board between their desks, half filled before she left this morning, was now almost black with scribbled words. She took Daniel's rolling desk chair; his jacket draped on the back of the chair. She pulled it up in front of the board.

"What's the sitch Tucker?"

The dark skinned agent looked up and noticing her presence for the first time, stood up abruptly. Kim smiled to herself – the kid had that device, and a dozen others – practically attached to his body. His red beret flopped down over his eyes as he saluted her dramatically.

"Tucker Foley, reporting for duty!"

"Cut the crap, Foley, what's the sitch?" she replied exasperatedly, but still amused. He sighed, a bit sadder than he was merely a second ago. The case was taking a lot out of everyone on Kim's team, even Tucker, who usually only cared about the tech and girls. His eyes brightened though as he flashed a grin up at the tall, raven-haired agent as he walked in sipping a scalding coffee.

"Nice of you to show up Fenton," she said with a small smile, glancing at his coffee, "with your third refill today too. You know that means you've had about six cups?" She had a skeptic look on her face. That man ran on coffee. How he slept, she had no idea. He gave her a questioning look as he reached the whiteboard.

"How the hell did you know that this was my third?" he asked, his eyes narrowed.

"I am an FBI agent, Daniel. I was a detective at one point. I would be a bad agent if I didn't notice things like that," she said cooly. She sighed, remembering he liked hearing her little stories of deduction.

"You brought a cup with you, so you have had more than one, because that cup is too hot to be the one you brought. The stain on your shirt says you definitely got more. It is logically your third. Your hands aren't jittery yet, like they would be after four, and the stain is dry, meaning you went back for more."

He gave her a displeased look, but they both knew he enjoyed listening to her. Bringing everyone's thoughts back to the case a t hand, Daniel cleared his throat and began, beckoning to the last of three photographs tacked up on the whiteboard.

"The latest victim is Elijah Brown. He's 25, and Jewish. Top of his class at Columbia Law School, he just began an internship for a major law firm down here. Had a lot of promise." The young man in the photograph had dark hair and dark eyes, his skin fair and smooth-shaven. Behind Daniel, his boss sighed, her fingers gently rubbing her temples.

"I talked to the coroner; he says he died of a single stab wound, but a rather unusual one. Killer entered through the back, piercing the left lung, but the hilt was jammed upward, bringing the blade down through his left ventricle. There are no fingerprints and no physical evidence of yet, and we have today and tomorrow to find some. I'll have to give the body back to the family for embalming and burial on Wednesday. I owe them that much."

At that point she stood up and taken over the whiteboard while the younger agents watched intently, trying to find something, anything that would give them a lead.

"Last seen leaving the movies with a group of friends in Bethesda at eleven forty-five," Daniel piped in as she scribbled events intently on the timeline, "he didn't go home with any of them – they all say that he went home alone," he finished. The older female spoke as she wrote down what she herself had found.

"Time of death was three to three thirty this morning. He was found in Cabin John at five-fifteen by a jogger this morning in a clump of trees, but the body was moved. Elijah was killed somewhere else."

Daniel sat down in the chair she had risen from; he frowned as he noticed it was his chair. He sighed, granting a sympathetic look from Tucker.

"God, I hope this isn't another one," Tucker said morosely.

Daniel looked up at him and replied, "We can hope, but we all know that he's another victim of the killer." He looked down at his feet for a second, thinking intently about something, and then looked back up, scooting his chair back to his desk. With fervor in his blue eyes, Daniel went back to the other two files, trying to piece together something, anything.

Daniel Fenton stumbled into his aging and mildly disheveled apartment well past midnight that night, dragging along a bag of Chinese takeout and an exhausted Tucker Foley. He hung up his jacket on the hook, and dropped the takeout on the coffee table as Tucker hung up his own coat. Sitting down on his beloved couch, Daniel took the plastic boxes out of the bag as Tucker rummaged through his sparsely stocked fridge for a beer.

"Hey Tucker, bring me one," Daniel called back from the tiny living room. The dark agent flopped onto the other end of the couch, setting a beer next to Daniel's plate of wonton soup, while he himself opened his plate of teriyaki beef with relish, sipping at the beer in between sips.

"Thanks man," Tucker said with his mouth not quite clear of food, "Sometimes the last thing you need on a case like this is a lonely house full of beeping computers and noisy college kids for neighbors. God, MIT kids were nothing like these frat boys."

Daniel nodded in understanding, smiling to himself at Tucker's mention of his alma mater. He enjoyed the newbie's company; despite the confusing computer speak often randomly inserted in his normal conversations. The raven haired agent deftly picked up the wonton in his soup with the chopstick and shook his head, remembering his own college days at Georgetown. He had come down to D.C. from Amity Park, Illinois for college in hopes of joining the NASA space program, but Georgetown was probably significantly more rowdy than MIT. He sighed as he finished swallowing his wonton.

"Tucker, this case is a mess. There's no evidence and no leads. And they toss it to the FBI because it crossed the state border on the last murder. And then the main homicide detective tosses it to us because they're busy with that dead Senator."

Tucker finished the last of the beef, abandoning the chopsticks in the plastic takeout bowl. He made a face and complained, "This stinks."

"Sorry man, I told you that you need to stop ordering that beef every night or you'll get sick of it."

"No, this case!" Tucker replied adamantly, protecting his love of the teriyaki beef, "P. F. Chang's is the best, I'll never get sick!"

"I know what you mean," Daniel responded, "We have no physical evidence and no leads, and all we know about the victims is that they all were about to become very successful and they were all males. What's that supposed to tell us about the killer!" Daniel threw down his empty soup bowl in frustration, and Tucker put down his beer with the same force, but the two agents looked at each other with a mischievous glint in their eyes.

"I never sleep the day we get cases like this."

"Me neither." Tucker said, "They give me the worst insomnia."

"Doomed 9," the two agents said in unison, their faces breaking into grins for the first time in hours. They rushed off to get their respective laptops, and racing each other back to the couch. Both tops flipped open and headsets put on at an inhuman pace. In seconds, an eerie green and purple screen loaded and he two agents were battling virtual ghosts and ghouls.

'_Dweebs,_' the Kim-voice in Daniel's head chided.

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to be continued...

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	2. But It's Better If You Do

Chasing Phantoms

Part I: Mad World

Chapter Two: But It's Better If You Do

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Early November, Daniel Fenton sat as his desk in the bullpen as usual. It was a typical Wednesday morning, the sun wavering weakly just above the low buildings surrounding the J. Edgar Hoover building, a thin mist of gray cloud draining the life from the day; draining the color from the faces of the people; the color from the usually vibrant orange trees. The day had started off bitterly cold and the thick wool coat thrown behind the desk chair was proof of it. The old crackling radiator between the first two bullpens often took naps throughout the day, and didn't even bother turning on at night, and when it was on, it complained noisily about its tiresome job of keeping the division from freezing as they idly filed papers and filled out reports. People didn't really kill when it was cold. The heat made people crazy, and the heat of the city had fled in mid-October, never looking back.

There was nothing to do. Everyone was either playing Tetris on their aging computers or finding little amusement in chatting with or harassing neighboring agents. The preceding weekend was not fresh enough to reminisce on, nor was the following weekend near enough to even think about. Not that Daniel really had plans. He had been with the FBI's Homicide Division all of three months and three people had died so far; he had spent three months busied with chasing the serial killer from Montgomery County to Fairfax and back again, but just November came upon them and the weather took a turn for the worse, everything had ceased. There were no more leads, no more deaths, and no more evidence to process. Part of Daniel was glad that no more people had died, but as a long-time cop, he knew that the more the killer murdered, then the more evidence and connections they would have to work with. Going underground just meant that it would take that much longer to find out who the hell he was.

Daniel was alone in the bullpen. Out of boredom, he placed his arms behind his head his head, he twirled around in his desk chair, waiting for either of his team members to emerge from their current engagements. Down in the subterranean-like basements of the building, Tucker was working with the main computer terminals, probably just cleaning the crap out it – 'defragmenting,' whatever that meant. Kim was a few floors up in a department meeting or something. As team leader, she was given responsibilities from the department head, who answered to the director of the FBI. Daniel grumbled about the whole bureaucracy of this place, annoyed with the ridiculous amount of red tape all every agent had to go through just to do their jobs. He stopped spinning abruptly as he saw a flash of red in his peripheral vision. Kim stood in front of him, her hand on her hips as usual, but she was strangely swaying back and forth – now that he thought about it, the whole floor was swaying…

"You are being reassigned," she said sharply, her lips pursed, and obviously displeased. Which, could be most likely attributed to his juvenile behavior, but she was also known to complain extensively about the constraints of the FBI, so he wasn't really sure. The file she slapped on his desk vehemently told him it was the latter. Daniel looked up, fearing the worst. He didn't want to leave for another department. The team meant just a little bit too much to him now. He mentally chided himself for getting attached so quickly. That was something he had learned early on in his days as a cop. Never get attached, because you never know how much it will hurt to lose a partner, a friend, until you do; you never know how long it will take you to recover from the shock and grief until you have to go through it. The fear in his eyes was evident, and Kim felt a twinge of remorse at making him think the worst, but she merely beckoned at the file. Flipping the yellow manila folder open, Daniel read what he saw as his own file:

TRAINEE AGENT DANIEL J. FENTON. BIRTHDATE: 1983-04-30. JOINED: 2008-08-01. HOMICIDE DIVISION. POSSIBLE UNIT. PREVIOUS OCCUPATION: BALTIMORE CITY HOMICIDE UNIT.

Well, he knew all of that already. He wasn't sure why he had to read his file over again. Kim saw the confusion flicker across his brow. The boy was slow sometimes. Hiding her chagrin, she leaned over and flipped six or seven pages.

TRAINING LEVEL THREE: NOT COMPLETED. RECCOMENDED FOR ADVANCEED COURSE OF ACTION. MINIMUM ONE MONTH DEEP COVER WORK.

He understood. As a trainee agent, he wasn't qualified for some of the heavier duties of the division. At least, until he passed the three levels required to become a full agent, another fourth to qualify as a special agent, and then a fifth for department positions. He mentally cursed the bureaucracy once again; three years as a Baltimore cop should have been more than enough to qualify him for the job, but alas, it wasn't. Daniel looked up at his team leader and she gave him a sisterly smile.

"You'll be put in advanced psychological and combat training for about two weeks, and then the department is shipping you out. I don't know where yet. I don't think I will know until a few days after you are sent out actually… for your safety apparently. After that, you'll be undercover for about two months unless I really need you here. The director of trainees will brief you and the other agents this afternoon, and you get the rest of the week off to rest and memorize your new identity. It's only nine, you should probably say goodbye to Tucker." The younger agent smiled at her, excited to break the monotony of work for the first time in weeks. "Don't get lost in that basement if you find Tucker before he finds you. I would set out fifteen minutes prior, but knowing you, you should aim for a whole hour." The look on her face told him she was not joking.

"Go get 'em," she finished with a smile. Daniel rushed to hug her, abandoning the boss-trainee boundary in his sudden rush of excitement. She growled threateningly, but he knew the gesture was just for show. He put the folder in his lockable desk drawer, making sure it was secure, and when his things were organized, he left the bullpen and rounded the corner into the main hallway of the floor. Stepping into the elevator, he gently collided with Tucker. Silently thankful that he didn't need to navigate the subterranean maze that was the Cyber sector, he gave Tucker gentle punch, pulling the slightly confused agent from the elevator and down the hallway in the opposite direction he had came from. No one ever used the stairwells located at either ends of the hallway, no matter how crowded the elevators were.

Kim watched Daniel leave the bullpen. She knew she had gotten attached to the new agent, and it had only been three months since he had been offered a place on her team. She chided herself for letting it happen, but she knew that no agent could really help it. She heard the dull padding of heels on thin carpet and shifted her gaze to the left to see Valerie Grey approaching from the back row of bullpens. The African-American woman greeted her with a warm smile, leaning the back of her thighs on the front of Kim's desk, mimicking the way Kim stood.

"They grow up so fast," she said with a hint of melodrama in her voice.

"Oh shut up Valerie, he's not my kid," Kim retaliated, trying her best to sound angry. The slightest lift at the corners of her mouth suggested that Valerie had known exactly what Kim was thinking.

"Girl, you sure got hooked fast. I can see why, he sure is a cutie…" drawled the darker agent. Kim gave her a horrified look

"Ugh, Val! You have such a one track mind, stop preying on my newbies!"

"You mean stop preying on little Danny? I didn't know you claimed him." It was all a game to Valerie, toying with Kim's strict principles. At this point, the game was in her favor. Kim's face showed the score.

"Valerie! Not only is he a full nine years younger than me, he's my brother!" The usually cool and collected agent was turning a queer shade of red, and Valerie was enjoying her victory, but the agent doubled back, looking thoroughly confused. Kim rushed to correct herself, knowing that the agent was never really informed about her time undercover a few years back, but then again it was an undercover job.

"When I went undercover for three months about five years back, I was paired with Daniel as a liaison job. He was just a baby then, I think just a year out of college. We were trying to catch an arsonist and murderer, and I was supposed to be his older sister."

"Where the hell did you find this kid? He's kind of hunky…"

"Val, if you use that to describe him, I might just have to file one of those sexual harassment slips. From what I've heard, they make you go to those classes every day after work." She gave the agent a light punch on the shoulder, but smiled despite her annoyance. The woman couldn't really help it. Her mind had only two tracks: high tech weaponry and men.

"But to answer your question, I 'found' him at Baltimore PD. He was a homicide detective there for four years before I asked him to join my team because…of what happened. He's a smart kid. He was an aerospace engineering major in college, but decided to join Baltimore PD instead of NASA. I have no idea why he chose to chase gang kids and psychopaths off of the streets instead of going up into space. From what I heard from all the people in his unit at Baltimore PD, he would have made a fantastic astronaut. Not that the life expectancies are that much different."

"That's a bit strange…I would think that being up in space would surely beat anything down here. How's trying to find Skulker?" the African-American agent inquired. Kim groaned, rubbing her eyes with one hand.

"You know I can't stand these affectionate nicknames you give my serial killers. How does Skulker even pop into your head when you look at his pattern?"

Valerie huffed, but gave the woman an apologetic look. It wasn't her fault that nothing had actually been found on the case yet. Her cell phone in the pocket of her standard issue black slacks buzzed gently with an incoming text message. The agent flipped the phone open, reading the backlit words on the tiny screen. Her face lit up in excitement, and Kim nodded in a silent gesture of dismissal. She knew that whatever it was, it was more important that chatting with her. The darker agent turned to leave, but was halted by the sudden appearance of Tucker, tapping away violently on his PDA. It was probably that 'Doomed' game again. Typical Tucker, thought Valerie, but just as the thought completed itself in her mind, he looked up at her. Both agents blocked each other's way. The technology-geek was two years younger than Valerie, but she thought that, God Almighty, he had the face of an angel. She felt her cheeks warm unusually, but decided to hide the rare embarrassment with a wink and continued on her way, sashaying off towards the weapon lab four floors below.

Kim looked at Tucker's equally red face as he sat down, smirking to herself. This time, she had won. She sighed happily at her small victory, taking her place behind desk once again. She glanced back at the technology-obsessed agent across from her, wonder what kind of agent he was going to become. Sure, he was smart, but he had only been an agent as long as Daniel, and wasn't even qualified for field work yet because he hadn't finished his training at the Academy. Actually, he was really smart. The kid was a damn genius, and severely overworked. It wasn't every day that a guy out of MIT and the CIA offered to work at the FBI. He was a 'techno geek,' as Daniel like to put it, and there he was, just sitting around playing 'Doomed 9' on his PDA. She smiled to herself, remembering how that game came out when she was in college. Her little brothers loved it. She cut off her train of thought, remembering that she had a sizable stack of paperwork left on her desk to file. She pulled a pen out of a coffee mug she had long ago turned into a pencil holder, waiting for her own PDA to go off.

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To be continued...

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	3. Can You Bear the Cost?

Chasing Phantoms

Part I: Mad World

Chapter Three: Can You Bear the Cost?

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Casey Whitman sat in the driver's seat of an old blue Dodge sedan, the hum of the engine radiating through his bones. The highway before him was graying and well worn, dark skid marks marring the pavement every so often. Green signs denoting exits and mile markers flew by: mile one, four, fifteen, eighty-three, a hundred and forty, and back to one again. The landscape was low, barren and colorless. Everything looked the same. Everything was the same. The factory on the left of the highway: how was it any different from the one on the right? The quarry? There was another one just two miles ahead. In a black escalade next to him, a middle aged man in a trucker hat snacked on a juicy hamburger, the contents occasionally falling into his lap, miraculously missing his wool-clad beer-belly. About three hundred yards ahead, a teenager in a red Toyota swerved dangerously to avoid a rickety old white car. Yes, everything was the same. Only the dull green of the trees in the dead of winter and the lack of self-service gas stations revealed anything about the stretch of road that heated the wheels of the Dodge.

The monotony of the road had begun to get to Casey. He turned off the heater of the car and opened the window a crack, trying to keep himself awake despite it being almost noon. The wind blew into the car with force, causing his eyes to tear from the bitterly cold November air. The open window filled his ears with a rushing sound. He shifted in the seat, trying to wake up part of his lower back that had decided to fall asleep. God, he wished that the drive didn't have to be so long. He closed the window and switched gears easily as the highway gently sloped down, changing the hum of the engine echoing in his bones. He could feel the energy of the car; he could feel the road he drove on. This was a small comfort on the open, aging interstate.

The low barren landscape ahead faded as Casey turned off of the interstate, revealing the dramatic skyline of New York City. The skyscrapers rose dramatically out of the ground, visible despite the gray haze that had shielded the sun from view all week. He drove down the winding road to the Holland Tunnel, which was, naturally, backed up with cars a half mile back. He reached the end of the traffic jam, waiting for the cars in front of him to inch ahead. He turned on the radio, jumping at the loud static on his usual station. Remembering he was now in New York, Casey turned on the scanner in his car, finally stopping at a station that was playing a familiar song. The car inched along the road through the tunnel. Casey cursed to himself. Damn New Yorkers couldn't even keep people out of their city when the temperature was about thirty degrees out.

Casey stood outside an old brick apartment housing complex in the Upper West Side. His car was parked around the corner in an underground garage. He pulled his keys out of his pants' pocket and climbed the concrete stairs up to the iron-gated front door. He fumbled with the keys until he got the right one and unlocked the gate. The front door opened with more ease, and he walked through with his black duffel bag slung over his shoulder, locking the gate and door behind him. Three flights up, he unlocked the door to his apartment, laying the duffel bag on the bed and heading straight to the bathroom. He was stiff from his drive, and shed his coat and sweater with a bit if difficulty. In the bathroom, he turned the water on the hottest setting and waited for it to warm; he caught his reflection in the aging mirror. His raven hair was matted where the headrest came in contact and his cerulean eyes were bloodshot.

The bell on the door of the shop tinkled gently, followed by the whoosh of the opening door and the soft padding of feet on the thin carpet. In the back corner of the store Casey stood up from organizing a new shipment of books to greet the visitor. The customer was an older man, his head shiny and bald, a graying goatee on his chin.

"Anything I can help you with sir? We carry all kinds of used books here, and we have a whole collection of classics in foreign languages," greeted the young man with a smile.

"I am looking for a very rare edition of this book," the older man said, pointing to a title hastily scribbled on a purple post-it note. The younger man stared at the little slip of paper, deciphering the delicate, quickly written, script. Casey smiled broadly at the older man, and beckoned him to follow. Casey led the man to an odd part of the shop behind a black curtain. The books were unbelievably dusty, but a particular shelf housed a similar group of books that were just as old as the others. All of them had a distinct black spine with silver lettering. The older man grumbled to himself. He should have known not to have taken this student's recommendation for reading, but she was a talented student of his. The young shopkeeper pulled out the title he was looking for, and the older man's eyes widened in pleasant surprise.

"Great Gatsby! You have it! I've looked all over this city for this book. One of my students recommended I read it."

Casey smiled again, and graciously cleaned the outside of the book on the way to the register. The old title was safely packed into a thin box and then into a paper bag with the letters 'Casper's Used Bookshop' emblazoned on it in an eerie green color. The bell on the door tinkled again as the man left.

Casey came out from behind the register and sat in the old leather armchair by the window of the store, pulling out the New York Times and opening it to the second page.

To any passerby, he was just the young man now working at the odd shop on the corner. He was just a young man, his blue eyes scanning second page of the New York Times through a pair of glasses, his jet black hair combed back neatly, sipping a coffee every so often out of a permanent. But Casey never read a word of that day's paper; December's news was useless to him. His eyes expertly peered just above the paper. He was watching the street. He saw and made note of every passerby, every car, and every animal. The quiet and dead Upper West Side block of apartments and odd shops was alive and intriguing to him; every person he saw he could catalogue. He put the coffee to lips, his Adam's apple moving up and down with the motion of swallowing. The cup was put back on the table next to the armchair, not a drop missing.

In Casey's apartment, the walls were tacked up with building plans, charts, maps, and various scribbles on notepaper. The wardrobe held a winter coat, two dress shirts, three sweaters, a pair of pants and a tie. Casey himself sat on the colorless quilt on his bed. He shuffled through little black notebooks and made more notes in a binder. It was well past midnight, and the second snow of the year was gently falling, though from the inside of the apartment, it was not easy to tell. The only two windows were covered by blinds. He sighed, tossing the papers down and stretching out on the bed.

He no longer wore a librarian-like sweater, but a simple white shirt with red cuffs; his hair was mussed up like usual; his fake glasses lay on the bedside. He unconsciously reached into his pocket to play with his badge, but stopped himself when he remembered that it would not be there. None of the things he was used to were here; he couldn't afford to forget it.

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**This is the first fanfiction that I am actually posting here, so please be kind and review if you've read it, even just to comment on gramatical mistakes or tell me that you liked it. I will try my best to upload regularly, but this chapter-a-day thing will probably not last very long. I have AP exams coming up, so the uploads will probably drop to once per week if it gets really bad. However, i will do my best to not complain and write as much as i can, especially for the people who have favorited this story so far. Visit my page or write me personally if you want more information about me or this story. And once again, thank you so much.**

**For the rest of the story, note that none of the characters you recognize belong to me.**

**PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, take the time to REVIEW! **

**Are the characters making sense? or are they too OOC?**

**Are the setting and plot elements as they are presented in the story clear enough? **

**What doesnt seem to make sense when you read it?**

**This is the first story i posted, and ive been getting good readership, but a measly number of reviews. I really, really, just want to know what you think. I you liked it, all I need is a few encouraging words and maybe some questions. I will ask kindly, if you have favorited or put this story on alert, please make a point to review at least once.**


	4. Give Me a Word that You Can Keep

Chasing Phantoms

Part I: Mad World

Chapter Four: Give Me a Word That You Can Keep

* * *

Three floors below, a door swung open with a rusty creak from lack of use, immediately followed by the clicking of heels. Tucker sat at the top of the stairwell, hoping that whoever this was, that they would not bother him. It had begun as a typical Monday morning. Tucker spent the first three hours of his day with his fellow techno-geeks in the basement per usual, talking about the latest processors and new video games they could play on their PDA's. That had all been normal. They pushed their glasses up their noses like usual; they snorted when they laughed; they talked about nothing that actually mattered. The day had begun like every other day of the week, but when Tucker emerged from the sub-basement like he did at ten o'clock every single day, there was no Daniel to talk about Doomed 9 with; there was no Daniel to chat about the latest model on the cover of Maxim.

Tucker was new, and so was Daniel. When he had first switched from cybercrimes to real field work, he had thought that he would never be thought of as a good agent, a real one; he had thought that he wouldn't find a friend in his department. But Tucker had found Daniel, and now that he had been gone undercover for a week, Tucker began to feel the loneliness he had always feared. There was no one to crack lame jokes with; no one to order takeout and sip beer with. A week and a half had gone by, and Tucker felt pretty damn lonely. He sighed and told himself mentally to suck it up. He had to grow up. Daniel would be gone for months, and he sure wouldn't appreciate an account of Tucker moping around when he returned. He couldn't afford to sit around all day just waiting for someone to talk to; Kim would probably just send him to cybercrimes permanently for not doing his job as a field agent.

Waking from his momentary daze, his eyes noticed a pair of lime green patent heels staring at him from a couple stairs below. His eyes moved upward cautiously over the black, standard issue slacks, the freshly pressed white button down, the well-cut black blazer, wondering who would actually come here – no one ever used the stairs. He nervously pushed his hat back out of his face and moved his glasses back in their proper place on the bridge of his nose instead of the tip, his heart rate picking up under the gaze of the looming figure above him.

"Agent Grey," he said, his voice a bit strained from the steely look she was giving him. He swallowed once, finding his voice again. She watched him raise his head to meet her eyes. Her heart jumped for a moment; she had forgotten just how much he had struck her when they first met.

"Did you need me for anything?" he added to his greeting.

She smiled crookedly; her teal eyes were electrifying and he felt his cheeks warm under her gaze. He didn't know why he was acting this way around her. He had been here almost three months – there was no reason for him to feel nervous. He had been with tons of girls, but this woman here was making him blush. He cursed himself mentally for being so weak around her. She was nothing to him, right? Her smile only widened, and his blood pressure rose, his heart beating steadily, but strongly against his chest. She sat down next to him on the stairs.

"As a matter of fact, I do," she said, her teal eyes fiercely analyzing his blue ones. She watched him swallow nervously, trying to figure out how much she could trust him – how reliable he would be for the job she had at hand for him – before adding, "Agent Foley, relax, Kim is not hunting you down, and no one is looking for you upstairs. She knows you're here. Actually, I personally wanted to find you."

She smiled at him, not crookedly this time, but genuinely. She liked toying with people, hunting down their weaknesses, but she gave up toying with him. She just couldn't bear to do it to him, and she was a bit angry with herself at the thought. Sure, he was attractive, but she'd been around handsome men before. She'd figure it out eventually.

"What was it that you wanted to talk to me about?" he asked, regaining his composure before the beautiful woman. She gave him a sympathetic look.

"How are you holding up? You've only been here a few months. The switch form CIA to FBI is pretty rough. Trust me, I know."

"I'm doing alright. I still can't believe I have to wear this monkey suit every day. I could go into Langley wearing my pajamas."

"I'm sure you'll get used to it, Foley. Kim never did, but then again it's not like she would ever give up her green pants. That and, she has a lot of leverage on the director. I don't know how, but she does. How is working on her team?"

"It's a bit lonely with Agent Fenton gone, but we don't have any new victims. I'll admit that the whole murder and serial killer stuff is hard to get used to." He grinned and continued.

"I puked at my first autopsy and my first field assignment with a dead body. That stuff makes an impression on a guy, and the whole team. You don't really want an agent that can't hold it together at a crime scene. Kim hasn't let me out of the pen since, but I don't really think that I mind all that much."

"So she keeps you on a leash? You only work on the computer aspects?" said Valerie questioningly, but she was slightly amused.

"What else can I do Agent Grey? I'm damn good at what I do. I went to MIT and was scooped up by Langley the second I graduated. Unfortunately, I'm not like Daniel and Kim. They're both smart, but they have that gut thing going on. I'm a math person, not a people person – I think logically – It was never my job to figure out how other people think. Like hell I know how to figure out who killed who. I like the tech, and it's good enough for me." _And the girls_, he thought silently, giving Valerie a side glance.

"Don't worry about Kim. She's a complete workaholic, but she knows what she's doing. Kim was a bounty hunter, and she hasn't really let that go. Don't let her overwork you – she's got some old wounds that haven't healed yet. I'm surprised you and Danny were hired so soon, but I guess she found the right agents for the job. You worked at Langley?" Valerie asked, looking impressed but critical.

"Yeah, I worked at Langley. I didn't do anything really interactive. I was one of the basement guys that designed their software and wrote programs to track terrorist cells. I rewrote their recognition software once because it was glitchy, but I didn't really have anyone to talk to about the real world. It wasn't exactly James Bond."

"I worked with the CIA too, but it was a bit more James Bond for me. They stuck me up in New York as a weapons technician. I could have been running my dad's old company after university, but he lost everything. The new weapon he was unveiling was tampered with; when he went to demonstrate it, it didn't work right. The stockholders sold everything and the whole business went bankrupt."

She finished – a sad but fiery look in her teal eyes. Tucker's unusual blue eyes met hers, and she had made her decision.

"I need something of you."

"I was waiting for you to ask. You didn't come all the way up here just to chat about me adjusting. I've only been here a few months and we're not exactly best friends." He looked at her apologetically and added, "Not that I'm opposed to getting buddy-buddy with you, Agent Grey."

She wasn't the least bit miffed – actually, she was quite pleased. His honesty and lack of restraint when talking were enjoyable and refreshing, as opposed to the people in her department. They were always so composed and treaded on eggshells, always wondering if they were going to leak a secret. Valerie looked at him for a few moments, knowing she would have to ask him now, but for a few seconds, she just stared. Her cheeks were warm, but she mentally thanked her dark skin for not revealing her blush.

"Of course, Foley, but in that case, you can feel free to call me Valerie. Daniel and Kim always call me Valerie."

She pulled an unsealed envelope out from the pocket inside her blazer and handed it to him. Tucker opened it and his eyes moved back and forth as he scanned it intently.

"Why do you need me? You have way more experience designing weapons than I do. I don't see how I could help past what you already know…"

"I need your help because I have already drawn up a design and made a prototype, but it doesn't stay powered up enough to actually work. Sometimes it works after a charge and then runs out, and other times it doesn't have enough power to even start. We need this in the field, but we can't have agents charging this for days and maybe it working once. That's why I need you Foley. I need fresh eyes – a fresh brain to look at this, and I can't trust the men in my department. They have no idea how sensitive this information is; you are the only person in this whole damn building smart enough to figure this out."

Tucker was flattered, but his mind was already working quickly to piece together everything that would need to go into the device and what would solve the problem Valerie was facing. He realized that he didn't have the blueprint or the device in front of him, meaning that he had no way to actually work on it.

"Valerie, how am I supposed to-"

"The plans are at my house," she said sharply, cutting him off mid-sentence. "I am going to need you to come over. Can you come tonight after work?"

Tucker panicked for a second, but put on a poker face and replied, "Tonight should be fine. I get off at five, since we have no case right now."

She stood up and nodded, affirming the plans. Taking the envelope from his hands and pulling a pen from her blazer pocket, she scribbled down an address and telephone number on the front.

"I will be expecting you at six sharp. You may stay for dinner if you like. I will probably order pizza or takeout once you get there."

Valerie gave him back the envelope, and with finality, turned around and sashayed down the steps easily and deftly. He wondered what it was about this woman in particular that made his knees go weak as he watched her lime green heels click down the stairs before she rounded the landing and continued down to the basement, and even then, he sat still, listening to the rhythmic sound of her heels until he heard the door shut three floors below.

* * *

**Please review after reading; i could care less how trivial the comments are. Ive had over a 100 hits and over 60 visitors, but only 2 reviews. please, please, please, if you take the time to read my story, at least take the time to review.**

**PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, take the time to REVIEW! **

**Are the characters making sense? or are they too OOC?**

**Are the setting and plot elements as they are presented in the story clear enough? **

**What doesnt seem to make sense when you read it?**

**This is the first story i posted, and ive been getting good readership, but a measly number of reviews. I really, really, just want to know what you think. I you liked it, all I need is a few encouraging words and maybe some questions. I will ask kindly, if you have favorited or put this story on alert, please make a point to review at least once.**


	5. The Other Side

Chasing Phantoms

Part I: Mad World

Chapter Five: The Other Side

* * *

5:30 a.m. On a black lacquered nightstand, an alarm clock went off with a series of blaring beeps, the red digital letters flashing in time. On the bed, a woman lying on top of the deep violet covers stirred, still wearing yesterday's clothing. She shut off the alarm automatically with a resounding slam of the top button. She rolled over, rubbing her eyes in exhaustion – mornings were not exactly kind to her. She stood up from the dark, plush bed and cracked her back, pushing the heels of her hands against her back ribs. A sensation of warmth crept over her limbs, and she sat back onto the bed as blackness covered her eyes.

After a few moments, her senses revived and her eyes opened, but she stayed still for a moment, enjoying the tingling warmth of the temporary faint, before sitting up again. The room was not luxurious, but well stocked and comfortable. The black wood-paneled walls gave a sense of claustrophobia; the red curtains on the window cast everything a bloody shade, and the violet drapes on the Victorian-style four post bed engulfing a good third of the room.

The young woman yawned and ripped off the wrinkled black band shirt, tossing it into an empty hamper near the door. It was soon followed by tight black jeans as she walked through the bedroom door in a black bathrobe. Her small feet gently padded across the hall and were chilled by the cold tile of the black stone of the bathroom floor. The door was shut and the lock clicked into place. Inside, the woman looked into the mirror and growled in frustration – she had fallen asleep with her makeup on, and now a thick, deeply smudged line of black rimmed her eyes.

She turned the faucet on, letting the water trickle gently as she cupped her hands to catch it. The frigid water chilled the bones in her hand as she waited, then she splashed it in her face, rubbing off the excess eyeliner around her eyes. She closed the tap and removed her purple toothbrush from its holder, followed by a half empty tube of toothpaste. She set them down on a rack in the shower, and stepped back out, her black robe and undergarments falling softly on the bathroom rug. Inside the shower, the water was turned on, cold as ice from the freezing nighttime temperatures. She let the water trickle down her white skin, turning it pink with cold, a small smile flickering over her face as the water slowly began to warm.

The tap was turned off five minutes later, and she opened the glass door, grabbing a towel as a rush of hot steam followed her out. She wrapped it deftly across her chest and squeezed the water from her hair onto the rug, the drops forming a dark pattern on the fluffy violet carpet. She dried her face with the hand towel that was streaked black on one side with yesterday's makeup, towel-drying her short, wet, raven hair in the process.

The cold apartment air stung her skin as she opened the door of the bathroom, but she merely ignored it and walked straight across the hall to her bedroom, grabbing a fresh pair of undergarments. She pulled a pair of black jeans over her peachy legs; a fresh midnight blue men's-style sweater followed her black singlet, the thick cotton loosely draping her, the seams where the sleeves attached a bit too low to be perfectly form fitting, but not losing her petite frame in the soft fabric.

She scrambled together a couple of notebooks and pens lying haphazardly on her desk before shoving them into a rather real-looking fake leather bag. She left the room clutching the straps in her left hand, the black bag occasionally hitting the hardwood floor as it dragged next to her. She set it down heavily on one of the stools under the breakfast bar counter, while she pulled a gallon of milk and a bowl of blueberries from the fridge. Finding a bowl, spoon, and box of her favorite cereal, she ate slowly, chewing the blueberries with relish.

The sun was still hidden behind the smoggy city skyline when she put her empty bowl in the sink and turned the coffeepot on. The black machine sputtered angrily, but turned on after three tries on the woman's part. _Damn old thing, _she thought, _it might just be time to replace her soon. _Guilt weighed down on her. Just because the old pot was having trouble turning on from age did not mean that she would throw it away into some landfill while it still worked. After all, the pot had been with her since her time at university. Black liquid slowly dripped into the clear pot as she pulled a reusable coffee cup out the pantry.

From a closet near the front door, she removed a pair of combat boots and pulled them onto her slim legs, followed by a wool jacket. She traipsed back to the clean and well kept, if gloomy looking, kitchen, removing the filled pot and poured the black coffee into the cup. Tightly sealing the lid, she made her way back to the front door, grabbing her bag and keys on the way. She stopped in front of the foyer mirror, pulling a small bag out of her purse. Opening the cap to a black tube of lipstick, she let the creamy color glide over her lips; she smacked them once, admiring the deep burgundy against her skin.

She locked the apartment door behind her, her feet clunking as she walked down the hall in her heavy shoes, twirling her keys between her fingers. The cold October air hit her face as she opened the door of her apartment building on the Upper West Side; however, the wind was not the only thing to hit her as made her way down the block to the West 86th Street Station

"Watch where you're throwing that, kid!" she yelled angrily at the young paper boy as he miscalculated the distance between the road and her front stoop. She chucked the paper that had hit her shoulder back at the boy fiercely, almost hitting the side of his head as he rode by.

"Sorry girlie!" He ducked in time and sped away, fear in the boy's face as he saw the woman furiously running after him, brandishing the Monday morning paper. Standing in the middle of the empty street, her face went from pink to beet red in anger, cursing him loudly. _He had called her 'girlie.' _She glanced down at the paper she had picked up from its resting place in the middle of the street. She flipped through it absentmindedly, bypassing the loud headline on the front page. Who cared if some guy in D.C. got stabbed weirdly through the back? Her flipping stopped as she came across the third page of the New York Times; her amethyst eyes flashed at the headline of a tiny column.

The woman burst from the subway exit on West 96th Street, clutching her coffee in hand. The paper she had picked up this morning – or the one that was rather violently introduced to her shoulder by an insolent little paper boy – was stuffed into her bag, haphazardly sticking out from the opening, along with the corner of a stack of tan fliers. She strode quickly and confidently down the street, every dozen meters or so pausing to tack up one of her posters with a slam of her metal stapler or the smack of clear packing tape. Her face was passionate and angry as she left a few startled faces and dozens of "Save the Lab Rats" posters behind in her wrathful wake.

Quarter to seven, she made her way through the double doors of the building, the sky a dull grey color over Morningside Park. She walked furiously, tacking up more posters as she went. Around her, college students scattered; they knew her well in this building, and they knew something had really pissed her off this morning. The woman came to a halt only when she reached Lecture Hall Three, stopping to take out another flyer from her bag and tack it onto the door with her stapler. A small crack formed in the old wood door, spreading outwards from the staple. She swung open the door and let it slam shut behind her with force. The tan flyer fluttered rebelliously on the door, obscuring the silver plaque that usually regally adorned the door. As the door shut with a sickening crack, the paper flipped up long enough to read:

_Psychology Department_

_Lecture Hall 3_

_Professor Lancer_

The small amphitheatre was filled with young college kids – about fifty or sixty worn out faces dozing off until the lecture began. The woman marched up the center aisle stairs, leaving the young students shrinking away from her furious presence. The students' gazes followed her march to the stairs as she disappeared through an open door that led to the professor's office and the projector.

"LANCER!" she woman yelled from inside, the fury in her voice carrying all the way to the hall outside the room. A late freshman walking hurriedly past the room startled and ran into a door, falling onto the floor with a strangled cry. An aging bald man popped up from under a seat in the middle of the room, trying to tiptoe away from what he knew would be a source of pain for the next few days. That is, if he actually lived that long.

"Lancer…" the voice from the office turned dangerously low, "I know you're in the fifth row next to that kid with the nasty instant coffee."

The fat, balding man sighed in defeat and walked to the end of the row, dejectedly accepting his fate with every step he climbed.

"I'm sorry class, I know you all wanted to hear the lecture I prepared for today, but the psychology of Jane Austen will just have to wait a couple minutes." He grumbled to himself, trying to fight the words he was going to say.

"You all may take naps while I have a professional discussion with Miss Manson here." His face was pained when he closed the door to his office, and when he turned around her face was dangerous.

"Explain this to me!" she hissed, slapping the morning paper on his desk. Her delicate index finger was a weapon as she pointed fiercely to the small article on page three. He cringed at the headline, knowing exactly why she was so upset:

NEW INSIGHTS IN THEORY OF HOW WE SEE COLOR: CHIMPANZEES HAVE COLOR VISION STRIPPED THROUGH COLOR ISOLATION

"They used baby chimps! They put them in white rooms for their first year! And you…" she seethed, "encouraged this! You, as vice-head of the department, should not have let this be authorized! Do you even care about those little baby chimps!"

"Grapes of Wrath, Samantha Manson, do you really think that I could have stopped the board! I was not a part of the study, and had no say. Those are laboratory monkeys, for God's sake, not pets!"

"My name is not Samantha!" she cried harshly, her petite frame shaking visibly under her wool coat, "and those _monkeys_ are partially sentient!"

He cringed away from her. Back outside the office, the class was not sleeping the slightest. They had always enjoyed hearing the arguments that their Professor had to go through when their Teacher's Assistant decided that the behavioral research being conducted in the building was immoral for using animals. One or two students sat slumped in their chairs, drool hanging out of their mouths, oblivious to recent argument from the very beginning, but the other portion sat still and erect in their seats, listening to every sound that came from the office. Of course, they were partially afraid for their own lives, in case she decided to set the lab rats loose in the lecture halls like she did in August.

Back inside, Lancer obviously gave up his fight for good.

"What is it that you want Miss Manson?" he said tiredly, rubbing his temples in sudden headache.

"I want the board to stop authorizing these terrible experiments on innocent creatures."

"That can be done Miss Manson. I will do everything I can. Now please, get some freshman to fetch me coffee. I need a ten minute catnap. I'm an aging man, Miss Manson, and as a teacher, much to underpaid for the honorable and self-sacrificing work that I do."

He took a thick leather-bound copy of Shakespeare's collected works and set it on the floor behind his desk before lying down and falling asleep completely within the span of moments. Sam sat down and pulled the lecture notes from his filing cabinet in the desk, sipping her bitter, almost lukewarm coffee as she skimmed them. She stood up, leaving the folder of notes on his desk.

The class pretended to be asleep the moment they heard her chunky boots on the tile floor, save for the two drooling freshmen on opposite sides of the room who were beyond napping. Sam smirked, trying to pick her least favorite students to boss around for the day. Lancer was beyond waking, and the class had a little less than two hours to go over the material. Her eyes finally settled on a pretty blonde girl in the back. Yes, she would do.

"Hey, kid in the Pepto-Bismol headband!" she yelled to the girl in the back corner. "Run and get Lancer a coffee. Make it black, one cream. He's getting to old for that artificial crap; it'll get stuck in his damn arteries."

Sam's amethyst eyes sparkled passionately. She grinned again as the students gulped in fear, turning to scribble furiously in perfect script on the old and dusty chalkboard:

_THE OTHER SIDE_

The students knew that when she taught, they were all at risk: at risk for actually having answer a question meaningfully; at risk of having to think beyond what everyone else drilled into their heads; at risk of seeing the world in shades of gray and not just black and white; at risk of leaving the classroom with heads freed of nonsense. They were at risk of seeing that the human condition was not determined by electrical impulses, nor parts of our childhoods, nor the sum of our sensations; but that it was determined by the spirit of humanity, which cannot be analyzed and broken down into pieces, but must be seen as something greater than the sum of its parts. They would leave knowing that the answer did not have to be one or the other, but 'both.' That was the nature of the human mind.

* * *

**A/N: Thank you so much for the people who have taken the time to read this. Please review, since I am new to writing stories here and would love the critique. Please, anything. If you loved it, hated it, please just tell me if you will keep reading. I have this story pretty much planned from begining to end, and its going to be a long one.**

**PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, take the time to REVIEW! **

**Are the characters making sense? or are they too OOC?**

**Are the setting and plot elements as they are presented in the story clear enough? **

**What doesnt seem to make sense when you read it?**

**This is the first story i posted, and ive been getting good readership, but a measly number of reviews. I really, really, just want to know what you think. I you liked it, all I need is a few encouraging words and maybe some questions. I will ask kindly, if you have favorited or put this story on alert, please make a point to review at least once.**


	6. Your Courage Soon Will Follow

Chasing Phantoms

Part I: Mad World

Chapter Six: Your Courage Soon Will Follow

* * *

Special Agent Kim Possible sat idly in her desk chair, turning back and forth, trying desperately to gather her thoughts and her feelings that seemed to be running aimlessly and rampant in her head. The snow fell gently outside the window, the bitterly cold December evening chilling the department from the outside in. Cold radiated from the glass window. She stared past the pane, her eyes mesmerized by the falling flakes.

The flakes turned violent, falling quickly and dangerously cutting through the air. They swirled around, turning into a familiar strong jaw and gray army buzz cut, the figure impressive and strong. The figure reached out to her and she made to stand up, hypnotized by the face behind the cold glass.

Behind her someone softly cleared their throat. Kim startled, spinning around fully to find Valerie leaning against the low partition that designated Kim's bullpen. Kim relaxed, lowering her arm that had found its way instinctively to her sidearm. Kim lowered the weapon and gave Valerie a deeply apologetic look, knowing that she had pulled a gun on her friend. The face had disappeared and the snow was falling gently, just like it had before.

"I'm so sorry Valerie, I didn't mean to! You know that I'd never actually…" she stammered a bit, her eyes wide and pleading, trying to take back what she had just done. She couldn't help but feel guilty. "Please forgive me."

Valerie loped around the partition and sat on the corner of Kim's desk where a giant stack of files usually resided. She guessed that the agent had had a lot of time lately to finish her paperwork. Real cases were never like television shows. There was paperwork to be filled out constantly, lab results and autopsies took forever, and the cases themselves went by incredibly slowly. Facing Kim, she placed her hand on the agent's shoulder.

"You know better than that honey. Never apologize for crap like that – it'll make you soft. I would have done the same thing."

Kim's face was pained as she turned her gaze downwards.

"I can't believe that it's been so long already."

"Honey, when you get shot at for ten years of your life, you learn not to second guess yourself. You can't second guess yourself."

Valerie was sympathetic, but adamant. Kim needed to get herself together soon, or her team would crumble behind her. The red-haired agent gave her a small smile.

"I guess that I've been on edge lately – cabin fever. It's already December and we still haven't made progress on the case from August. I've been sitting around doing paperwork all month. I finished filing all my cases from the past two years, not to mention Agent Flagg's. You know as well as I do that he hasn't touched that pile since he came here seven years ago."

The strain in the older agent's voice was obvious, but to Valerie it didn't really seem appropriate that she was upset. Kim wasn't overworked; they had no leads to follow on the serial killer case, and there were no new cases. Her paperwork, and half of the department's, had been done for a while now; Daniel was out of her hair having a good old time in New York City, playing with the New York Police Department and trying to catch a drug dealer and alleged organ harvester; Tucker was under Valerie's wing for now.

Then it hit her as she looked at Kim's empty expression, the glow of the security light and the snow illuminating her face, draining it of every color but a sickly blue. I was the third of December.

"Kim…" Valerie said with a gentle tugging sympathy in her voice. She looked up to meet Valerie's light eyes with her own.

"You have to move on already. There's still an empty desk in your pen. It took you long enough to even consider hiring Fenton and Foley."

Kim looked up suddenly, her green eyes flashing dangerously.

"You think I should fill the empty desk don't you?" She stood up, her hardened frame shaking from some internal struggle. "You think that I should move on and let go?" she continued to hiss at Valerie, a deep pain in her eyes.

"Kim, it was never your fault!" Valerie replied adamantly. Kim sat back down, her emerald eyes brimming with tears that she refused to let fall. She looked absolutely heartbroken.

"Valerie, they're gone because of me. I could have stopped it. I could have been faster, I could have tried harder. He didn't deserve to die the way he did."

Her voice shook as she stared in to the darker agent's teal eyes.

"Do you really think you could have done anything Kim? You almost died yourself! Do you even know what it was like for me? I waited by your bed for days, just waiting for you to wake up from that coma. You should have permanent brain damage from the explosion, but miraculously you don't. It nearly killed me too – I was supposed to have been working that day on our case, but I called in sick. Kim, I was playing hooky! If anything, I am partially to blame."

"I think I remember the injuries rather vividly, Val. Still, none of that matters. Agent Barkin is dead. Ron is gone. I could have done something! If I had just had my knife on me like Barkin always told me to, I could have been there sooner! I could have stopped those creeps! And, if Barkin hadn't died, Ron wouldn't have changed divisions and left for damn San Francisco."

Kim's freckled face turned bitter, and Valerie knew exactly where she was going, even though she desperately hoped that Kim had let it go already.

"He didn't even tell me that he was leaving. I was still in a coma, and he decided it would be kinder to just leave – to just leave without saying goodbye, without waiting for me to wake up, without telling me why…and you're trying to tell me that this isn't my fault, Val?"

"It's not. Stoppable will come around, and if he doesn't, he isn't worth you worrying over. And no matter what, you can't forget your duty to the people, Kim. You need to replace your missing agent. Otherwise, you won't have enough manpower when you need it."

"I haven't closed a case since he died!" The red haired agent looked so forlorn and desperate. She needed someone now, more than ever. And now, more than ever, she had no one. She had no one but her former partner, who was sitting on her desk, fire in her teal eyes.

"Kim, buck up! Barkin isn't coming back for God's sake!"

The red haired agent gave Valerie a glare that almost put out the fire in her teal eyes.

"Don't belittle him. He didn't quit on us like Stoppable did, he died. He died in the line of duty, trying to protect us - his team - , our department, and our country. You can never replace him, Val; he was here for over twenty years. This place was his heart and soul, no matter where he freelanced."

The redhead was standing again, towering over the sitting agent. She pulled at her long fiery locks in anguish, staring out of the window again with an incredibly beaten and broken look in her eyes; the eyes of a soldier not quite dead, but fighting even though he knew that the battle would soon consume him.

"Find someone to fill the spot, Special Agent Possible. You don't have a choice. The director will have your ass if you don't get someone – anyone – there permanently by next fall."

The darker agent was as unyielding as the fairer one, and turned to leave her friend. There was nothing she could do to help Agent Possible right now. It was the anniversary of her mentor and team leader's death, and nothing her former CIA partner could do would change that. Kim was halfway gone.

The Special Agent sat back in her chair, facing the swirling snow. She tried to shake the image from her mind, but the face of her mentor wouldn't leave.

They had been investigating the serial murders of noted medical students across the country, all of which seemed to be linked by one thing. They had been severely disfigured at death, body parts of animals sewn into their respective places on the students' bodies. It had been a grisly case, and she, Barkin, and Ron had been working well into the night on December 3rd, one year ago. Ron had not taken kindly to the case, and refused to be shown the autopsy pictures or crime scene photos. Kim hadn't really liked the idea of it either, but she had adjusted better than Ron.

Earlier that week, she and Ron had finally stumbled upon a lead in the case that linked the murders to a researcher studying genetic engineering of animals and human mutation. The scientist was a lady named Amy Hall, and Valerie had nicknamed her DNAmy. Apparently, the woman had been suspected of animal cruelty and had a borderline personality disorder, leaving her sadistic and dependant at the same time.

That afternoon, they had finally found her location and were going to arrest her, but the team had been stopped. DNAmy had apparently left her residence without a trace, forcing the team to stay at the building trying to track her again. Valerie had left in the afternoon, complaining about the headache that all her overtime hours were apparently giving her. So, at about ten in the evening, Ron, Kim, and Barkin, their always formidable team leader were sitting in their chairs in the center of the bullpen, eating pizza in a campfire fashion.

As Kim remembered Barkin, the tears that had been welling in her eyes spilled over. Her resolve failed as the hot, salty tears ran down her face. There was no one left in the bullpen; no one left in the department to see her cry. At midnight, even the janitors on the floor had decided to go home. It was too cold anyways. As an Army Lieutenant, he had led the team valiantly with his booming voice resonating through the entire department every time he had said anything. His hair was stark white now; Kim remembered it was still brown when she first joined the FBI seven years prior.

It had been Barkin that offered her a position in the first place. Working as Valerie's field partner for the CIA, they had both been sent on a particularly risky mission. Of course, their director had known how risky the mission was, but he turned the other way when it came to the deaths of agents. To him, they were all replaceable. To him, the only thing that mattered was that the people were safe, happy, ignorant, and paying his salary. Of course, he was not an evil man. He had saved countless lives as a former police officer in small Illinois city and thousands more with the CIA. But, his mission had left Kim with a damaged wrist. For the CIA, losing absolute precision in her gun hand was all that it took for her to be cast out like a dog.

Valerie had left a year later after the director sent her on a mission that destroyed her father's business. She always told people that she wanted to work at her father's lab after college, but he had gone bankrupt too soon. Unfortunately, the bankruptcy was because the weapon was tampered with by her then-partner. The Director had thought the technology designed by Valerie's father would end up in the wrong hands and would lead to terrible consequences. She never forgave the deceptively charming man, and never passed up the chance to remind the graying man that he had lost the best weapons technician he would ever have. Again, Barkin had picked her up and put her on his team within weeks of her violently dramatic departure.

Barkin's voice had resonated the same way as they all sat around in a circle, munching on pizza – well, Kim and Barkin had been eating pizza. Ron preferred Mexican food. Ron had stood up to go to the bathroom, and left Barkin and Kim alone for a few minutes. It was near midnight, and even the janitors had gone home for the night. The sinister blue security light had flickered for a few seconds before going out completely. Kim had suddenly risen to her feet, but it was too late; the glass was shattering and a hot fire sent desks and chairs flying towards the window from the other side of the department. The loud blast sent Kim flying against the wall and she hit it with a sickening crack.

"Possible!" yelled Barkin from a few feet away.

Ever the solid figure, the blast had merely dirtied him. Kim was stuck under a filing cabinet; her pants leg caught in the melted and disfigured drawer. Her vision tuned red as blood dripped down her face, but she struggled as she saw Barkin pushing his way through the debris to free her. A sandy blond agent raced through the door, gun in hand. He was followed by three figures dressed in black, all yielding large guns.

A slighter figure caught up with him as he tripped over an upturned partition. Kim struggled more, her head on fire as she tried to free herself. She watched helplessly as the slight figure in black took the butt of her gun and clubbed Ron in the head as he was down. Her mask slipped to reveal a woman with short black hair, her eyes hazy with anger and madness as she continued to beat the unconscious agent. Kim was frozen with shock, unable to scream. He was probably dead – her best friend since, well, forever.

Barkin had immediately run to Ron's aid, but the other two figures, much larger, had jumped on him from behind. The woman distracted herself from Ron, and shot Barkin once in the side. She shot again and missed. The bullet ricocheted off of a manual copier that stood in the room for "old times' sake," and made contact with Kim's collarbone with a sickening crunch of shattering bone. She let out a strangled scream of pain, and the trio turned their attention to her. She had been hidden under the cabinet, but her position had been given away. Barkin ran towards her, trying desperately to keep the intruders from killing the incapacitated Kim.

She managed to free her sidearm with much effort and shot at one of the men. As he fell to the floor with a crunch, shattering an old desk, Kim shot again, missing Barkin by inches, but hitting the other man square in the forehead. The woman, who Kim recognized as DNAmy, ran after Barkin. She shot him twice more, once in the leg, causing him to crumble to the floor, and once in the chest. He fell like a rag doll in the ashes of the explosion, valiantly holding onto life to protect his agents. Kim abandoned all her previous struggle and in a burst of wrath dislodged the cabinet. She ran recklessly to the side of her fallen leader as the demented killer laughed, firing shots past her.

Kim swiftly executed the psychopath – one shot to the forehead, like she had done with the other two men. Barkin lay bleeding on the floor below her. The sticky pool of red soaked through her ripped and singed cargo pants as she leaned down to his side.

She lifted his large, strong head into her arms, covering the wounds with her hands. He had been shot in the right lung. Maybe – maybe he would live. Her dare of hope was ripped away as he opened his eyes to reveal bleary and fading brown eyes. He coughed gently, spurting blood over her already stained shirt. He blinked once and cleared his eyes. They were defiant again, defying death for a few more moments.

"Kimmy…" he sputtered hoarsely. She searched his face for a shred of hope, but he himself had accepted that this was the end. He was hanging onto his broken and shattered body for her.

"Kimmy… sometimes…" he coughed again, blood running freely down his cheek.

"Sometimes the hardest thing…" his voice failed for a moment and his eyes threatened to close, but he held on, "…and the right thing…"

The aging soldier closed his eyes and took in a deep, rattling breath. The fiery brown orbs opened again for a moment and he looked deep into Kim's blood-stained, but still brilliantly emerald, eyes.

"…Are the same."

His head rolled back gently in Kim's arms.

The gory scene vanished from her eyes, the peaceful snow replacing the blood, the sweat, the heat, and the ashes. She sat on the floor of the bullpen, hiding behind her desk. Her body shook violently in sobs that she couldn't hold back. From the doorway, Valerie watched silently, admiration and sorrow resurfacing in her heart. She turned away for the last time, silently making her way down the hallway.

She whispered to no one in particular, "Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same." The elevator doors opened silently, and Valerie looked back down the hall for a moment.

"I can't help you Kimmy, but I really want to. Sorry for leaving you like this."

As the elevator doors closed, a silent tear rolled down the stubborn agent's cheek.

* * *

**A/N: Thank You everyone for reading. I really love this story, even though ive been getting a measly number of reviews. i have AP tests going on this week, but i updated for you guys. Please keep reading, and ALWAYS REVIEW. Laila tov my darlings, i hope you enjoy this chapter - its kind of bittersweet for me. Sam and Danny in the next few chapters. I will always update at least once a week, and i promise that this will be a long story, so stay for the ride =] I have the whole story pretty much planned from beginging to end, and even though things are sketchy, i know exactly how long it will be. The chapters will get longer as the story progresses into real time.**

**Charachter bios and information about the story can be found on my profile; If you have questions, PM me, and i will always reply.**

**PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, take the time to REVIEW! **

**Are the characters making sense? or are they too OOC?**

**Are the setting and plot elements as they are presented in the story clear enough? **

**What doesnt seem to make sense when you read it?**

**This is the first story i posted, and ive been getting good readership, but a measly number of reviews. I really, really, just want to know what you think. I you liked it, all I need is a few encouraging words and maybe some questions. I will ask kindly, if you have favorited or put this story on alert, please make a point to review at least once.**


	7. A Restless Road

Chasing Phantoms

Part I: Mad World

Chapter Seven: A Restless Road

* * *

Casey stood in the window of the shop, basking in the warmth of the late February sun. The air may have been cold outside, but the sun shining through the window in the morning lifted Casey's mood considerably, since the last weeks in New York had been increasingly gloomy and tiring. He sipped his coffee and sat down in the leather armchair, which squeaked in complaint at his weight. The glare of the glasses reflected back in the window and illuminated his stark blue eyes.

The little book shop on West 77th Street had become a comfort to him, even though he had never been much of a reader. He corrected himself; he was not much of a reader, but Casey was. He removed the glasses and cleaned them, trying to reduce the glare of the strong rays just peeking over the tops of the buildings. He guessed that it was just about nine in the morning, which of course meant that he had been awake for almost four hours now.

His life in New York had been quite foreign when he had first arrived, trying to adjust into the habits of a man that was not like him. But slowly, Casey came to life, thriving in the large city. The subway was more crowded that where he was from and he had usually taken his car to work because of the distance, but it was not too different. The streets were noisier and the sidewalk larger; everyone walked in Ney York and it was completely impractical to have a car, but Casey knew that he needed it, just in case. He loved that damn blue dodge.

The street scene seemed to be the same as it was every day, and in no hurry, he left the squishy chair for the back room of the store. The back of the store had a huge stack of boxes waiting to be unpacked and sorted, but Casey ignored them. Rather, he focused his attention on an old metal desk in the corner, dust thickly piled in the corners, but the center clean from recent use. Casey sat down in the rickety, graying oak spinning chair and removed a ring of keys from the front pocket of his black trousers. He found the smallest key on the ring and stuck it in the padlock on the drawer, struggling with the rusting metal as the deep filing drawer opened with an eerie screech.

From inside he pulled out a manila envelope and flopped in onto the table, stirring up a thin cloud of dust. Casey sneezed lightly as he unintentionally inhaled the cloud. He read over the notes in the file scribbled in his own handwriting. There were pages and pages, dated from the second week of November to today's date. He smiled slightly, remembering the detective that had given him the preliminary files.

The New York Police Department had been difficult to find in the giant clog that was New York City, and even more difficult to find because he had never actually been to New York before. He had parked near the building and made his way down the crowded block to walk through from there. He had looked at a blue post-it note with a name and department scribbled on it, and after consulting the map at the front desk for about five good minutes and getting clearance; he took the elevator to the third floor. Finding the office he wanted, he knocked gently on the door frame, where an aging, but extremely elegant looking police detective was waiting for him. He glanced once at the gold nameplate on her desk.

_Special Agent Cecilia Thompson _

_NYPD Liaison to the FBI_

He had reached into his black satchel and pulled a thick file and handed it to Agent Thompson, sitting down in a deceivingly comfortable chair in front of her desk. Her wavy gray hair was pulled into a nonchalant bun, her eyes lined fashionably in black. The elder agent's nose was strait and regal, the tip turned up just the slightest; her cheekbones wide; her forehead wide and intelligent; he face lightly lined but clean.

"What trouble did you get into, Probie, that the Hoovers sent you to me?" she said smiling lightheartedly.

He looked at her indignantly. He hadn't done anything wrong! Right…? She laughed throatily at his paling face.

"I am joking Agent Fenton. I wouldn't expect you to have done anything wrong. From what Special Agent Possible told me over the phone the other week, you are very experienced and can definitely handle yourself undercover. She was also kind of glad to get you off her hands. Apparently there's been absolutely no work, and she would rather deal with her managerial duties without having to worry about you Probies."

Daniel sighed in relief, but still felt a little off-put by the woman's casual demeanor and how she talked about him. He had worked in homicide in Baltimore for years before coming to the FBI. He had seen things that could cause Kim to cringe – cases that no one else wanted or was dedicated enough to solve.

"Thank you Special Agent Thompson for the reassurance," he had said contentedly, but with a sarcastic undertone to his voice.

"Agent Fenton, no need for sass, I have read your file twice. I know what kind of reputation you have down at Baltimore P.D. I talked to everyone; I can't make any mistakes here. This guy – or lady – that's been operating out of West 77th in the Upper West Side has made some nasty career out of selling really potent drugs and harvesting organs. It's not the worst you've seen, I know, but this guy is just nuts. Whoever this is, Daniel, is selling drugs that alter the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain. The clients get severely depressed, but hopelessly addicted, and keep coming back for more. They need it, and when they get depressed enough, they are killed and their organs collected – probably sold. The families never suspect murder until it's too late – until their loved ones are rolled in here in black body bags."

She had pulled a file out of a large stack of manila folders behind her and handed it to Daniel.

"As you have been briefed before, you are now Casey Whitman. I expect bi-weekly reports disguised as office supplies. Don't screw this up. I'm tired of dead bodies being sent to my morgue missing half their body parts, and I don't need more people addicted to whatever hybrid drug that crack head is selling."

She pulled a paper out of a bin on her desk and handed it to him.

"On a lighter note, this is the place you will be staying at – you will be working as a bookkeeper at a used book store the same block that all this crazy stuff has been happening. The man who owns the shop is currently away on a vacation that we were more that than happy to give him, and he was more than happy to take. Your paycheck comes from the FBI, but it will be disguised as sales commission from the store – which, by the way," she had seemed distracted all of a sudden and twirled her desk chair around and shuffled in some more bins until she had found a post-it note with some blue scribbles on it.

"…is called Casper's Used Bookshop."

She had smiled at him through her thin glasses fames.

"Best of luck to you, Agent Fenton. Run along."

"I won't let you down Special Agent Thompson," he had said as he walked out of her office.

Casey closed the folder and replaced it, instinctively knowing he had been gone too long. He shut the file cabinet, which protested its use with another retaliatory screech, like that of nails on a chalkboard.

He peeked back out into the shop and checked the time on the odd clock that hung on the black wood paneling, behind the register. Satisfied that he had time, he removed his wool sweater and tossed it on the back of the desk chair, followed by his dress shirt. Left in his singlet, he began to move the boxes filled with exotic books to the space right in front of the door to the back room. The stack grew on the wall between the storage room and the especially rare book collection, and drops of sweat beaded Casey's forehead, occasionally leaving little brown spots on the cardboard boxes.

Half an hour later Casey straightened his back and let out a deep sigh of mild tiredness. He walked back into the back room and wiped the sweat from his body with a handkerchief he kept neatly folded in his pocket. Splashing his face with cold water from the bathroom tap, he removed the sheen of sweat from his brow and restored his orderly appearance. He pulled his crisp dress shirt back on, but neglected the sweater. It wasn't that cold in the shop anyways. Back in front of the looming pile of boxes, he pulled a knife out of his belt and swiftly, as if slitting the throat of an animal, split the seam of tape that kept the top box closed.

"Woah, you look a little too excited doing that."

Casey startled; his eyes wide and knife poised in his right hand like an accusatory finger.

"Oh, um....ah…are you looking for something?"

He quickly lowered the knife and replaced it in its sheath on his belt. He looked at her apologetically, knowing that wielding a pocketknife at a customer was not exactly considered courteous. His messy raven hair was tamed a little bit; his button down neatly tucked into his pants; the sleeves rolled up nonchalantly. Casey looked up at the unexpected visitor for the first time fully in the face, instantly intrigued by her unusual violet eyes.

"Actually," she said fully unafraid, her purple eyes staring challengingly back at his blue ones, "I was wondering if a man came into your store a few months ago. I don't really expect you to remember, but he is my thesis advisor."

She was a little strange now that he gave her a good look. She was scowling, which was a little off-putting and made him quite nervous. Maybe she was pretty, but he really didn't know what to think. That scowl was just so prominent – as if she had so much to be bitter about.

He replied with a goofy smile, trying to lift the corners of her mouth just a fraction of an inch, "I'm sorry, Miss, you're going to have to give me more than that. A few people who looked like teachers came in here, and there was one lady that could have been a real vampire."

Her eyes softened, but her scowl did not.

"He's bald, has a rather prominent beer belly, has a goatee, and uses the names of classic novels as exclamations. I don't think you could really forget him."

His eyes brightened as he laughed lightly.

"So I guess you are the student that recommended that he read 'The Psychology behind the Western Fear of Ghosts'? I like your taste in books."

She seemed to relax, and offered the young bookkeeper her hand.

"Samantha Manson, but if you call me that I will make sure you are never able to procreate. Call me Sam."

He grinned again goofily and shook her delicate hand avidly.

"Da-," he coughed over the beginning of his mistake, "Excuse me, dusty air in the shop. I'm Casey Whitman, nice to meet you Sam. Actually," he said, letting go of her hand, "Nice to meet anyone. I'm kind of new to New York."

"I've lived here my whole life. I went to university and graduate school here too. I'm almost finished with my doctorate in psychology."

Casey looked at her with surprise. She looked a bit young to have her doctorate already.

"So what is it that you're looking for?" he asked steadily.

She smiled crookedly, but without joy.

"I don't know. I'll know it when I see it. I didn't really have anything to do today. I'm Mr. Lancer's TA, but he let me off because the class seems to be getting better and he doesn't have a headache. I don't even really know why I came here. I guessed that it would be kind of cool to actually check this place out. It's totally my vibe."

Casey smiled again. He could understand that. The young woman wore three colors: black combat boots, black jeans, a black sweater, and a deep violet vest with lime green pinstripes. She looked like a woman who had been Goth in her teens, and found a way to keep that even as she grew up and went into a professional field.

"Would you like to have some coffee? I don't really get many customers and haven't met anyone in my …wow…almost three months here."

The corners of her mouth lifted a fraction, but they were genuine this time. She was a little surprised. All this time she had tried so hard to keep people away from her, but this young, goofy bookkeeper decided that he didn't care how much she glared and scowled at him.

"I think that would be nice."

He pulled up a stool from behind the register and offered it to her. He left the room and soon she could smell her favorite Columbian grind wafting from the back room. Casey reappeared and sat down himself, setting down two mugs of strong black coffee.

"I hope you like yours black. I never carry sugar or cream or anything."

"That's fine."

She inhaled the scent of the coffee deeply.

"Mmm… this is my favorite! No one else I know drinks this stuff. They all say it is way too bitter or too strong. Personally, I think it has character."

"You read my mind Sam. I can't even remember how many cups I've had today… this might be my third or fourth."

"Do you need any help unpacking those boxes?" she said sympathetically as her violet eyes beckoned to the looming stack by the wall.

Casey's blue eyes twinkled in gratitude and surprise as he finished his coffee in a few long gulps.

"That would help a lot. I have a new shipment coming in two days and if I dent get this dusty old stuff on the shelves, I won't be able to get into the back room anymore."

He stood up and took their finished mugs into the back room. Sam sat contentedly and quietly on the stool as she listened to the sound of thick porcelain being set down next to the sink. The rush of water from the faucet reached her ears as she thought about the young bookkeeper. Why was he being so friendly to her? She had done nothing but scowl and be unfriendly to – well, everyone. And, why was she offering to help him when she could be doing other things, like tacking up more posters or cleaning out her frog's tank? Lilith really needed her tank cleaned…

And then there was his personality, his motives. She almost had her doctorate! She should have been able to figure him out in the span of ten minutes, but now, almost within an hour of meeting him, she still couldn't figure out what kind of person he was. The normal things she had picked up on just didn't make sense.

A bookkeeper had no need to drink that much coffee. Where could he have gotten an addiction like that? And then there was a matter of his glasses. He seemed to see just as fine without them as he did with them. Were they just for show? His shirt had been tucked in neatly, but his sleeves rolled up with a disdain for complete formality and need for comfort. And he was too toned, she thought, blushing slightly, to be just moving boxes all day.

No, she corrected herself, not all day. Maybe he got new shipment once a week. The boxes looked to have been untouched for about five days. Again, her thoughts became jumbled. Five days was a long time to leave boxes unopened, and it didn't really look like he had much else to do around the tiny bookshop. He couldn't leave the shop while it was open, so what was he doing all day? What could he possibly be doing all day?

He reappeared after washing out the mugs, and put his glasses away into a case in one of the drawer in the counter that held the old register. Frankly, she liked the look of the old rusty machine. Sure, it wasn't very high tech, but the shop was spooky enough that she couldn't imagine anyone actually being brave enough to sneak in at night and raid the contents. They might just get cursed…or haunted.

"You sure you want to help? I can definitely do this myself…"

She looked at him with challenge in her fiery violet eyes. Of course she would help. She wasn't weak.

"Are you kidding me, Casey?"

He smirked and tossed her a capped box cutter. She caught it easily and jumped up from her stool. Sam followed him around a few tall shelves to the impressive stack of boxes in the back. He had already removed ten or so books from the box he had opened as she was first walking in. He deftly placed them on the shelf a few steps away and showed Sam where to put her batch.

Casey smiled at her so broadly, she could swear that his face would break. He was happy being around someone for a change, but Sam couldn't even begin to understand why it was her that he was smiling at, why he had offered her coffee and a friendly hand. His blue eyes were bright and shining; as if he had been quite absorbed with something and only now had he found some distraction, some light in a very long, dark tunnel. She couldn't help but smile back.

Daniel's cerulean eyes smiled just as brightly, his heart swelling with a secret victory. Maybe, that was all she needed all along: some dusty books and someone to smile with.

"I'm going to need some help on Tuesday, if you could swing by?"

She just smiled even wider. She couldn't stop herself.

* * *

**(A/N): Thanks to everyone who has faithfully read and reviewed so far. I have done my best to update regularly, even though school has been absolutely crazy. Please review! I need the feedback. ACTION IN THE NEXT CHAPTER. Review, and I will update by friday night...**

**PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, take the time to REVIEW! **

**Are the characters making sense? or are they too OOC?**

**Are the setting and plot elements as they are presented in the story clear enough? **

**What doesnt seem to make sense when you read it?**

**This is the first story i posted, and ive been getting good readership, but a measly number of reviews. I really, really, just want to know what you think. I you liked it, all I need is a few encouraging words and maybe some questions. I will ask kindly, if you have favorited or put this story on alert, please make a point to review at least once.**


	8. Who You Are

Chasing Phantoms

Part I: Mad World

Chapter Eight: Who You Are

* * *

Sam sat in Lancer's office, flipping idly through the notes she had taken in the past three years of her research. She was impatient and tense today, trying to get out of the building as quickly as she could to see Casey. The man that she had seen when she got on the train looked so much like him, and it made her ever the more anxious to see him. I wasn't like her to actually have someone to talk to other than the man who sold organic coffee on campus and Lancer. She fiddled a bit with the strings on her plain black corset and adjusted the sleeves of her loose, violet v-neck sweater. It was still sort of chilly.

Sam wasn't really sure why she had worn her usual going-out clothes just to see Casey. It was technically a school day, even though all she did was help Lancer and work on her thesis. But, this Casey had been the only person she had met in New York since high school that took the time to talk to her. He almost seemed to have made it his mission to see her smile.

She banished the thought as soon as it came to her. He wouldn't do that. He didn't even know her. But, then again, not many people did. Sam wasn't exactly friendly or warm, and had been shoving away people that only wanted to be friends with her to get close to the Manson family and climb the social ladder. She never wanted to have fake friends like that – she never wanted to even be a part of the society her parents were so involved in.

Lancer sat behind his desk, waiting for her to address him. I was an early Wednesday morning, a couple minutes before his freshman _Psychology of Literature_ class was supposed to begin. Finally, Sam found what she was looking for, and slapped the thick packet onto his desk.

"Gulliver's Travels! You have finished your graduate thesis?" he asked her, his eyebrows raised.

"Almost. I feel like I am missing something, but I don't really understand what it is, or perhaps who it is. Perhaps I am being too much of a perfectionist, but something seems to be off. It is not really quite optimistic."

Lancer flipped through the stapled packet, skimming its contents with a look of interest on his face.

"You have remarkable observations here Miss Manson. It is really quite interesting how you have taken such a broad subject such as personality and motivation and turned it into what you have here, 'The Human Spirit as Determined by How We Respond to Great Upheaval.' It is quite brilliant. If you believe it is not finished, I will leave that up to you alone. I think I will let you have the day off again, Miss Manson, seeing as we are beginning _Romeo and Juliet. _My favorite! And you enjoyed it as well, if I remember correctly. You always did have a taste for the tragic."

Sam laughed dryly, but her face was bright.

"Thanks Lancer. I was kind of counting on a day off."

He suddenly looked up at her, as if remembering something important. Sam stopped in her tracks and groaned.

"What did you forget this time, Lancer? Its February for God's sake! Couldn't you take the time to remember that they moved the materials you need to a storage room downstairs from the ones around the corner?"

"I'm an aging man, Miss Manson! I can't carry those books all by myself!"

She was distressed, yes, but he really had no choice.

"Miss Manson, those are valuable course books and as my Teaching Assistant, I trust you alone to help me give them out to the students and the book register updated. I can't have any of my precious books stolen from me like when you were in my class almost seven years ago."

"Fine," she spat irritably in his direction.

It was already half past seven, and she had promised to be at Casper's at eight. Factoring in the fifty minute commute, Sam was going to be really, really, late to see Casey.

Casey woke up at 5:30 just like usual. He pulled on the sleek black trousers and crisp white dress shirt Casey always wore, followed by a sweater vest. It was a little balmier than usual today, but the rain from the night before had left everything quite dreary. Casey was out the door at half-past six, his black wool jacket zipped up tight, and a plain hat pulled over his ears. He rounded the block and made his way through the throng pushing their way down the stairs to the W 86th Street Station, hundreds of commuters punching in their fare cards, cramming through the doors of the subway.

Frustrated, Casey pushed against the crowd on the stairs, using his weight as an advantage. His sleek black shoes were muddied by the people scrambling like animals to catch the next train. The subway at the bottom of the stairs whooshed away quickly; the rush of warm wind causing his eyes to tear behind the glasses that he didn't really need to wear.

He punched in his fare card and pulled it back out quickly, mildly annoyed by the large woman pushing him avidly from behind. He decided not to break his cover and merely pushed forward towards the platform, instead of angrily flashing his sidearm like he would have back in D.C. The lights on the edge of the heavily muddy platform blinked red as the rush of the coming train filled the tunnel. Light appeared from the far left end of the platform as people scrambled to get to the front of the crowd. Many of them couldn't afford to miss the train.

The train screeched to a stop, the doors of the subway miraculously appearing right in front of Casey. The doors opened and a new group of people joined the commuting crowd on the platform. Casey stepped inside quickly and reserved a spot where he could hold onto the rail overhead without getting too jostled.

The subway doors of the car closed just as another train heading in the opposite direction pulled up. Casey looked over quickly; the crowd in that train was probably even worse than the one in his. His eyes widened in surprise, but when he blinked, what he had seen was gone and his train was inching away. He could have sworn he saw a pair of purple eyes staring through the glass of the train.

About twenty minutes later, he was finally free from the stifling interior of the subway. The cool February air cleared his nose of the smell of the train and the smell of hundreds of people, some unwashed. He walked briskly away from the W 79th Street Station and the 7th Avenue-Broadway train pulling away from the platform, pulling his wool jacket closer to his body as the cold, slightly rainy air rushed by in gusts. The small shops passed by him as he walked another two blocks down Broadway Avenue. He fumbled a little with the key to the bookshop. It was still dark out and the old lock was not being very agreeable. He hung up his jacket on the wrought iron coat tree between the door and the curved bay window and tossed his satchel on the leather seat. In the back room, the coffee maker stirred to life.

Casey stood in the doorframe, looking past the shelves over to the music store across the narrow street as he sipped the freshly made coffee. He didn't really like the old man that worked in the store, even though he seemed harmless enough. After all, he was old and short, and moved very slowly as he sorted old records and new CD shipments. What was his name again? Birch? No, that was the name of the store…Barthes? Bert? Casey remembered – Bertrand. His name was Mr. Bertrand, and he always had that lady in the store with him. She worked down the street in the medical center. Everything about her was severe and biting; she was pretty, but still gave Daniel a bad feeling.

The sun had risen and it was quiet on the street. It was almost nine – the mostly residential area was empty, seeing as everyone had already long gone to work. Only Casper's Used Bookstore and Birch's Music Shop were open this early; the three other businesses on the street only worked in the late afternoon and evening hours in the winter.

Sam was supposed to have come already. She said she would swing by around eight to help Casey sort the new shipment of books that had arrived early that morning, but as she was not here, Casey began to mechanically sort the first of twelve boxes himself. At least, he thought, these boxes were pretty small.

He straitened suddenly; he had been putting a book on one of the bottom shelves near the back corner of the store, where the bay window couldn't be seen. He peered around the shelf, wary. People usually didn't leave Birch's at a flat run…at least that was what he thought he had heard: a small shriek and a slam of the store door across the street, followed by the quick patter of small heels on the concrete, and – was there another set of feet after her? Daniel couldn't see anything out of the ordinary when he looked, but then again, the shelves obscured the door the music shop.

Another unearthly scream and a thud brought him quickly from around the shelf. Daniel was horrified and shocked at what he saw. A woman – not young, but perhaps in her late thirties – was being dragged by her feet back through the door she had just exited a second ago by Mr. Bertrand.

"Help, someone help! They're going to kill me1 someone please, call for help!"

Her desperate voice was muffled by the glass in front of Daniel. She was thrashing avidly and desperately, but there was no one to hear her on the empty block. Her clean cut blazer was dirtied from the wet sidewalk and snagged on the doorframe for a second, but was freed with a sinister ripping sound.

The bell of the store across the street tinkled as it shut, trapping the woman in the store. Daniel ran through the front door of Casper's and across the street, the chilly air biting at him through the sleeves of his dress shirt, his shoes smacking the muddy asphalt noisily.

He slammed open the door of the music shop, his eyes trying to find the woman from whim the now-muffled screams were coming from. He was met by the pudgy face of Bertrand, but the man's hands were otherwise occupied. The woman's screams were quieted by a clear oxygen mask, but her pupils were widely dilated and a sinister green power floated through the tube of the mask as she tried to get air – but all she got was the drug aerosolized, biting her lungs and taking hold of her mind.

Her struggle was nowhere near as intense as it was when Daniel saw her fighting to get out of the door. She was giving up. The severe woman that worked in the medical center kneeled on the other side of the helpless mother. A sleek case was next to her, and Daniel could see the glint of a scalpel and other surgical materials within, as well as a quick glance at the name on the ID card pinned to her red suit lapel.

The severe woman stood up and ran towards Daniel when she saw him swing open the door of the shop and lunge towards Bertrand. She met his righteous presence with her own steely, heartless one. Brandishing a pair of surgical scissors, she deftly stabbed Daniel in the side. The closed point of the scissors was dull and punctured his skin slowly and painfully, the hilt hitting his ribs with a thud.

He shoved the vicious redhead aside and she hit a shelf holding old records with a sickening crack. The scissors still in his side, Daniel scrambled towards the dying woman as she now very faintly struggled against the mask and against the old shopkeeper. He ripped out the scissors from his side, blood running freely now over his shirt through the sweater. It flowed onto the floor and covered his hand as he tried to stop the bleeding. Daniel lunged at the old man, knocking him to the ground as he tossed the scissors across the room.

A small, abnormally cold hand grasped him around the ankle and scratched as deeply as it could, the already sinister red nails turning more bloody than the already were from the area above his sock. Crawling on his hands, Daniel grabbed the cord of the register and tried to pull himself up as both the woman and the old man viciously latched onto him.

Another sharp pain stabbed him in the back, quite close to his heart, but a bit below, in his left lung. He gasped for air as more blood rushed into his lungs, letting out a primal yell of pain as the scalpel slit through his shirt and down his back; the woman was trying to help herself up using the scalpel she had stabbed his with as a handle. Daniel pulled on the register cord and the heavy machine fell to the right of him with a thud. The old man squeaked in pain as it crushed his already weak hip and fell back, passing out from the pain.

The severe woman withdrew the scalpel from Daniel's back and teetered a bit as she stood up. He collapsed, but turned himself to face her using his arms. His chest was weak and bloody as he gasped for air, a burgundy stain developing on the green carpet and fine wood counter. The woman lay a few feet away, delirious, but slowly inching her hand towards her pocket. Daniel still had hope – he just had to keep this…this…thing…from killing him long enough for the police and paramedics to come.

She smiled evilly and threw the scalpel at him. Daniel tried to dodge, but it came in contact with his right arm. Her voice, when she spoke, was smooth and sinister, like a snake hypnotizing its prey.

"Ha! Ha! You're barely a man! Did you really think you could stop me? Or anyone for that matter!"

She glared at him and stood up straighter. His chest seared with pain at every breath. The hot sticky blood pouring down his shirt, staining it like spilled wine on a white tablecloth. Daniel looked her strait in the eye, his gaze never faltering even as his exhausted lungs did. He coughed again, sputtering blood, but not having the strength to wipe it from his mouth.

"Let her go."

His chest heaved again and more blood came from his mouth. Daniel's eyes were bleary and tired, his face covered in blood and grime from the floor. He never let down his gaze, and she reveled in the challenge. Dr. Spectra let out and audible hiss as she jeered at Daniel.

"Look at you – you so valiantly tried to help, but it looks like you're going to fail after all. Probably just like always. What, did you let another person down? You couldn't help them?"

Daniel's eyes flashed and his dark eyebrows knitted together with as much protest he could offer.

"Ah…that's the trick. You feel like you let them down forever? You think that you're a poor, useless child that never had a real chance at saving this woman. I can see that…you were foolish running in without help, foolish to think that you of all people – barely and adult, for god's sake – could stop this comfortable thing I have going for me?"

"You won't get away with this! Give up, or…or…" his voice faltered as he brought up more blood from his mouth with a heavy, spluttering cough.

Again, Dr. Spectra jeered, but this time she walked up to where he was lying and squatted down to his level. She grabbed his face with her long, manicured red claws and lowered her voice. She stared him in the face and laughed softly as she dug her nails into his flesh. Daniel refused to quit, he refused to let her win. He had a duty to the people…to the woman lying on the floor in a drug induced delirium. But, he felt his resolve waning. His strength, his body, they were both fading away from him quickly with each passing minute she breathed into his face.

"Or what, little boy?" she hissed, her voice tangling around his throat, stopping his breath.

Daniel's cerulean eyes blinked, and he freed his mind from the hypnotizing hold she had on him. In one swift moment he ripped the offending scalpel from his bicep and lunged at the monster in front of him with all if his remaining strength. The ghostly scream and crunch below told him that he had not missed.

"Or this," he finished quietly.

He rolled away from the crumpled body of Dr. Spectra with a grunt and let go of the handle of the surgical blade, his hand covered to the elbow in fresh blood. Moaning in pain he tried to pull himself up, but collapsed as his lungs gave out again and left him short on air. He tried again, this time moving towards the victim, and not upwards. His bloody hand stopped a foot from her and moved no further.

The strange blackness he had entered was strangely colored. He had faded; he was halfway gone. It was strange, this darkness. It was filled with the sounds and colors of the real world, but it was as if they had been ground through a filter. He saw the flash of red and blue light. The police and paramedics had come; maybe, even if he didn't live, at least the woman might have a chance. His body was lifted up, he knew that, but he could feel nothing within it. He was trapped inside his mind, an endless maze. He was trapped somewhere in between.

He smiled a bit; or he would have, but he was not really in possession of a body. Still, a jeering but loving kind of feeling swept through him. There was Kim's voice, commanding and perfect as usual. He was disappointing her – she had counted on him to come back alive. But now, Daniel was not sure where he was – or which he was. He was still thinking - and feeling, right? Then he couldn't be dead…unless…this was his soul, carrying over to death. Was this a ghost?

Another voice cut into the darkness. Whose was it? It was so familiar, so comforting, but he couldn't place it. The voice was important. It was saying something important…or was it angry? Perhaps, it was confused…or hurt? Daniel's own consciousness filled with the same feeling that the voice was giving. Why did it hurt so much? Why wouldn't it stop? Death was supposed to be painless and quick…unless…

He fought with his mind. He fought with every fiber of his being to find his way out of the darkness. As long as there was some shred of hope left in him, he was not about to be left shut in his mind; he was not going to just…whatever his body was doing. His moral resolve strengthened with the pain that he felt, even though he felt that in a normal, logical place that was not his mind that it would not make sense. He was still alive. He was not going to let go without a fight.

"Oh my God, Daniel!"

His eyes opened to meet the face of his superior, tears staining her cheeks. He gave her a weak smile and swore internally at the sheer physical pain of his body. A movement caught his eyes. Glancing up, his cerulean eyes met a pair of exotic violet ones. They were wide and hurt.

"Daniel?"

"Yep…" he laughed meekly.

Her expression clouded.

"What happened to _Casey_?" she spat avidly before turning to leave the room.

* * *

**Oohhh... sorry about the cliffhanger. This chapter took way too long to write, in my opinion. Please review. Rememeber to strap in for the ride, i have the next chapter drafted already and will have it polished by next friday. REVIEW. They encourage me to write better, longer chapters.**

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**Ok, this is getting ridiculous. I have 5 reviews for 8 chapters. Do you know how hard ive worked to get this story written? PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, take the time to REVIEW!**

**Are the characters making sense? or are they too OOC?**

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**This is the first story i posted, and ive been getting good readership, but a measly number of reviews. I really, really, just want to know what you think. I you liked it, all I need is a few encouraging words and maybe some questions. I will ask kindly, if you have favorited or put this story on alert, please make a point to review at least once.**

**The people who have reviewed or PMed me have given me some reaallllyy good ideas, especially Quantos Prime - i hope you picked up on that little bit in Chapter...six... i think?**

**Anyways, thank you. You all encourage me to keep writing =]**


	9. Just Put Insomnia to Sleep

Chasing Phantoms

Part I: Mad World

Chapter Nine: Put Insomnia to Sleep

* * *

Sam seethed silently outside. She walked quickly away from the place she had been trapped in for…God knows how long. Zipping up the asymmetrical slit on her wool jacket, she pulled the deep burgundy cloth close to her body and shivered against the chill. The sun was a hazy white orb behind a thick layer of gray clouds and the ground wet from the evening rain. She strode hurriedly down the street, staring down at her feet as she walked, mesmerized by the simple rhythm of her walking. Something was tugging at her, but the anxious feeling seemed less and less logical the more she thought about it.

Sam looked up at the bright but colorless sky as she felt the first drops of rain on her face. Walking faster, she removed her bat-eared umbrella from her bag and opened it noisily. The automatic swoosh effectively startled a middle aged woman heading in the opposite direction, who jumped and stared blankly at the white-skinned graduate student striding down the street. The woman shook her head and shuddered as if to dispel the aura Sam was casting off with her chunky boots, studded belt, and heavy silver rosary that moved in time with steps.

Her chunky steel-toed boots made light splashing noises as she hurriedly made her way down the street, simmering beneath her dark umbrella as the dull patter of rain echoed above her. Outside was cold and dreary, but little green buds were appearing on the trees. The wide sidewalk was slick with rain but the colors of the city were washed out and dull, as if the rain had simply pulled the brightness and life out of everything. She quickly found the subway entrance and closed her umbrella hurriedly, the drops of rain that had accumulated on it hitting her face as it closed. She flew down the stone stairs of the station and punched her fare card without hesitation.

Sam was quiet and agitated as she waited patiently on the platform. There were few people riding the metro, but then again it wasn't rush hour that Tuesday. The station was dim and the fluorescent lights flickered every once in a while above her. The red tile was slick with rain that had been brought in by the shoes of hundreds of commuters far earlier. There was a space where the tile was not slick, but dotted with wet footprints of people like Sam who had walked down into the station just after the rain showed its face again. She looked down into the tunnel, begging the train to come, but she knew that the will of her mind couldn't bring the lights on the edge of the platform to light up. Of course, she knew this, but she had never been very patient and so she willed it to come anyways. God, did she want a coffee right about then.

A few moments later, as if some higher power decided that today was not a day to go against Sam's will, the white light of the train came in from the north end of the station. The platform lights lit up, but Sam didn't move any farther from the edge as the rush of the train's slipstream ruffled her damp hair. The mechanical voice announced the name of the station and the doors opened to let out a few people, but not many.

Sam crossed the small space between the train and the platform, looking down at her feet to make sure her boots didn't get caught. It was an irrational fear, but she never really liked that foreboding little space. The doors of the subway closed as she found a seat near the door. Sam sat with her elbows on her knees the entire ride, not moving for anyone that came in or left, barely noticing the movement of the train as it stopped and started and curved its way south. She just couldn't get what was bothering her off of her mind; there were just too many things to think about these days.

What was she doing? Why had she even bothered accepting the young bookkeeper's invitation? She just couldn't shake the feeling that something was unbelievably wrong. Maybe this time it was real. She shook the notion from her head. Every time that it seemed that she had found someone who took the time to be around her, to talk to her, they only wanted her money, her status in the unofficial aristocracy that her family was a part of it. Why would the bookkeeper be any different? He was so jumbled…all the signals she usually picked up on and pieced together quickly were all off with him. He was probably just trying to get her money. That had to be it.

She was shaken from her trance as the obnoxious, overly feminine mechanical voice announced her stop. Sam rushed quickly through the doors and onto the platform of West 77th Street Station. Punching her fare card again, she walked carefully, but quickly, to the stairs. She sped up and slipped lightly on the stairs, but regained her balance and opened up her bat umbrella. Once her boots hit the pavement she jogged lightly, not caring that her boots were covered in dirt from the street and the puddles in the street were lightly splashing up water onto her jeans and chilling her.

She continued to jog down the street, anxiety building in her ever since she left the building, and she tried to dispel it with the light exercise, anything to channel her energy. Even if she hated to do anything that required any real physical involvement. Her hair was damp and wavy from the rain and the black liner around her eyes was blurred. Her complexion was shiny from the humidity and the jogging, and her cheeks reddened, to her distaste, from the cold.

She slowed as she rounded the block to lower her heart rate and calm herself down a tiny bit, but the flashing lights down the street caused her to stop in shock. Panicking, her eyes went wide and her heart hammered against her chest. She gripped her umbrella and bag tighter and broke into a flat run, as fast as her chunky, steel toed boots allowed her to. No, she repeated over and over in her head…no, no, no, that couldn't be what was happened, surely…there was no way that…was there? What had happened?

A whole team of ambulances, fire trucks and police cars came into view from behind a tree at the same time that Sam saw the front of Birch's Music Store. Her run slowed for a moment as she saw a woman being wheeled out on a gurney, but she still kept even pace up to the offending yellow crime scene tape. There was a flurry of activity. Men and women milled about in the heavy rain, police officers walking in and out of the store regularly, but slowly. If there were people in there, Sam wondered angrily, why wasn't anyone moving any faster to save them? Wasn't that their jobs? To protect people?

A police officer came up to her as she stood at the crime scene tape, gripping it with a horrified expression on her pale face. She was an elder woman, perhaps in her fifties, with her silver hair in an elegant bun. Sam turned her gaze from the mysterious scene and turned it to the officer. She instantly admired the woman, with her pretty, pale face almost devoid of wrinkles because of a lifetime away from the sun. But, perhaps it was also the striking black liner against her starkly light gray eyes, or the ruby and onyx cross around her neck. However, Sam knew it was neither of those things that really struck her. It was her eyes, which radiated compassion, hurt, fire and spirit.

They compelled her she saw the rest of her figure come into focus through the now-torrential rain. Her silver hair was slick with rain – Sam guessed that it was really stark white when it was dry. Her blazer was soaked and it was the only thing covering her wiry frame – not a single shiver or chatter of her teeth betrayed any kind of cold from the officer.

"Hey, miss, are you looking for someone?" she asked Sam, compassion and genuine concern in her voice.

Sam looked the woman in the eye and replied in a panicky tone, "I don't really know what's going on, I'm just wondering…"

The older officer saw the young woman's face go stark white and her body rigid as she stared past the police cars to the gurney being wheeled to the ambulance. Sam couldn't move. She completely blanched, more horrified that she had ever been in her life. This was real. This may have felt like a horrible dream before, but now, she knew it was real. She just caught the shock of black hair on the man being lifted into the ambulance quickly, men and women surrounding him with cloth in their hands to stop the blood that was everywhere.

Her heart stopped for a second. There was blood. There was blood absolutely everywhere. Like a deer making the decision to rouse from a mortified stupor, she broke into a run after quickly ducking under the tape, dropping her bag and bat umbrella carelessly behind her as the rain assaulted her face and chest fully, her thoughts running wildly and in panic.

"Casey!" she screamed into the crowd of sirens, not caring who chased after her or who tried to stop her or who got in the way.

She heard a far-off voice call somewhere behind her, "Cecilia! Cecilia, she's not supposed to be inside the crime scene!"

Sam could have cared less. There was the only person she had ever met that actually offered her a hand of friendship, and there he was lying on a gurney bleeding to death because of…God knows why he was bleeding everywhere. She hated herself for doubting him, for not refusing Lancer's request, for not being there to help him – to stop whatever had happened. She just needed to be there, with him. She didn't even really know why, but she had to.

"Hey, lady, this is a crime scene; you need to get out of here!'

Sam heard more voices like this yelling around her and suddenly two strong arms caught her around the waist. She gasped as the wind was knocked out of her – her momentum had been abruptly interrupted. Through the sheets of rain between her and the ambulance, she saw Casey's face. It was bruised and bloody, with distinct claw marks on his clean-shaven cheek. She gasped and struggled against the officer holding her back, blinking rain out of her eyes as it accumulated on her lashes and ran down her face.

"Let me go, you big brute! He's my friend! Let me go, I need to see him!"

"Calm down, he's still alive for now! There's nothing you can do to help him, miss!"

Sam stopped her struggle at the sound of the distinct female voice behind her, and the arms holding her slackened.

The elegant woman that she had first seen stood in front of her, her face and clothing slick with rain. She saw the panic in Sam's eyes and the hardness in her eyes fell away to understanding.

"If you would like, I can take you to the hospital in my car. I can question you while we are driving."

Sam's initial reaction would have been to say no adamantly, but her mistrust of law enforcement just didn't apply with this woman. She made Sam feel like everything would be okay – that no matter how horrific the scene before her was, it would turn out for the better.

"Thank you," Sam said purposefully, her amethyst eyes burning vividly through the thick sheets of cold rain.

The elder officer gave Sam a warm smile.

"I am Agent Cecilia Thompson of the FBI. My car is this way," she finished briskly before walking strait past Sam, who was left to catch up with her wide strides in confusion.

That woman was…FBI? What the hell was the FBI doing here, and not the New York Police Department? Still, Sam wasn't complaining about getting out of the rain, and after watching the ambulance Casey was in round the corner, she swiftly followed Agent Thompson into her black Mini Cooper. Sam silently praised the woman for her taste in compact cars, but the thought fell away at the reminder of what was going on.

Actually, Sam knew very little of what was going on; all she had seen were three bodies on gurneys speeding away in ambulances to the nearest hospital with a state of the art ICU. There had been blood all over the people she had seen. She quickly lifted her eyes to notice a black body bag being wheeled on a gurney into a truck with the logo of the NYPD morgue on it.

Agent Thompson noticed Sam's absolutely mortified expression – the girl may have been Goth, but it was her first crime scene – her first murder. Perhaps, even her first taste of the streak of violence in the human race.

"Snap out of it, honey, we're getting out of here."

With that, Cecilia Thompson started the engine of her car and turned the windshield wipers on at full speed, and with a screech of complaining tires, she turned the car around in the street and sped off in the direction of the ambulances.

"What's your name honey? I mean your full, legal name."

"Samantha Manson."

"Holy…!" the older agent said loudly as the car's brakes complained at the sudden stop, "Holy Hell, you're the Manson heiress? Jesus Christ, Samantha, what's a girl like you even doing in the Upper West Side?"

Sam growled dangerously.

"It's Sam, Agent Thompson. And, I could care less what 'a girl like me' should be doing. I'm an adult, and I'll do whatever the hell I want. For your information, I was going to Casper's Books to help Casey unpack a new shipment."

"Sam, I know who your parents are and I can tell you're nothing like them. I was just trying to get you to stop beating yourself up over Casey. Did you work with him in the store?"

Sam continued to stare through the windshield that was marbled with a thick layer of water every time the wipers got even half a second's rest.

"No, I go to graduate school. I don't have a job, except as a teacher's assistant at Columbia University. I met Casey the other day when I was just stopping by, and we just started talking. He said he didn't know many people. He seemed like such a goofy, nice kid…what the hell happened?"

"I can't tell yet, and I can't tell you, to be completely honest. Hold on, honey, I need to make a phone call."

She pulled a business card out of her pocket and flipped open a plain gray cell phone.

"Read this to me,' the agent said as she handed the card over to Sam.

Sam read her the number on the card and Agent Thompson punched in the numbers on her cell phone accordingly. From her place in the passenger's seat, Sam couldn't hear the rings on the other line because of the police siren on the tiny car, but she guessed that it was only one ring before someone picked up.

"Hey Kim…" Cecilia said morosely.

"_Cecilia…Cecilia, what the hell happened? Where the hell is Daniel! What the hell happened to my agent!"_

"Hell happened. I already scheduled a flight for you. Dulles Airport; ten-thirty Red-Eye flight to New York. He's at Columbia Hospital's ICU, so you better get your ass over here soon.

"_Oh my God. I'll be there. No matter what, Cee, he doesn't die. He's got the heart of a lion and the stubbornness of an ass, that's why he's on my team. Cecilia, you do whatever it takes to keep him alive until I get there. Don't let him forget that he has to stay alive. You got that?"_

"I will, honey. Kim…?"

"_Yes, Cecilia?"_

"I'm so sorry."

"_There's nothing we can do now. Just let the doctors do their jobs. See you in about an hour."_

Agent Thompson snapped her cell phone shut with one hand. Her gray eyes were full of sadness; a kind of desolation that came when one knew someone who could be dying – or already dead. It was the same pain echoed twice over in Sam's eyes.

In the hospital, Sam and Cecilia sat in the waiting room close the ICU where Casey was being kept until he woke up. It was about eleven fifteen in the morning, and Agent Thompson was just waiting until this Kim woman arrived. Sam sat with her legs pulled up to her chest on the floor of the waiting room, a towel pulled against her as she shivered in a pair of purple scrubs. Her own clothes were in the dryer; as well as Agent Thompson's, although she had chosen to sit in a squishy chair and not the floor. Rocking back and forth in an attempt to regain her body heat, Sam worried incessantly about Casey.

Her reverie was broken by a sudden movement on the part of Agent Thompson. Looking up, Sam noticed she was greeting a formidable, fiery haired woman that would have been pretty, but her disheveled appearance was not most flattering. Her hair was bushy from the rain and pulled into a high ponytail. Deep purple bags situated themselves under her eyes and her eyes looked red and tired. She also wouldn't stop fidgeting with her belt, which made Sam quite nervous. Who was this woman? Who was she to Casey?

The two older women left Sam to talk to Casey's doctor. She kept observing the red-haired woman's behavior. She was extremely protective of Casey – could she be his sister? No, they didn't share any similar features…perhaps she was a close friend from wherever he had moved from? That made more sense. Still, it didn't explain why she was so haunted and afraid. There was a wild look in her emerald eyes, as if she were desperately willing the doctor to perform a miracle right then and there – to wake up Casey from his unconscious state. What sort of wrong was she trying to make right? How many people had she watched die? She had the eyes of a soldier – haunted, unyielding, and passionate.

Sam felt her eyes closing despite the morning hour. She lay down in a more comfortable position on the floor and was soon asleep. Kim and Cecilia were still talking amongst themselves.

"Who the hell is she, Cecilia?" Kim asked bitingly, but the more experienced woman before her could pick up the tone of sympathy behind it.

"It seems like your Daniel made a little friend here. She's the daughter of the Manson's and is almost finished with her graduate degree in Psychology. She's a strong girl – she walked in on the crime scene as we were getting all the living people out of there."

"She still thinks that he's Casey Whitman?"

"Apparently, she does. But, it doesn't matter if she finds out otherwise. We caught that bitch and her little assistant."

Kim's eyes went wide for a split second before her lips curved into a smile.

"Daniel caught the black market organ harvester? Thank God this wasn't in vain. At least now she can pay her time."

"I'm afraid not, Kim."

Her face furrowed in confusion.

"Kim, he killed her. That's why he's so beaten up. She put up a fight, and it was two against one. He was a little rash running headlong into that store, but if not, that woman would be dead."

Kim turned to face the glass of the ICU where Daniel was being kept, tubes running through his nose and IV's stuck in his arms. Bandages covered the newly stitched up wounds, but his bruises were vividly purple. A bag of deep burgundy blood dripped down a tube and into his arm; he had lost a lot of blood, and that was the reason he was unconscious.

It was about nine in the evening. Sam had been moved onto a sofa by one of the nurses, but she was still fast asleep and a world away from the day's traumatic events. Kim and Cecilia sat on the couch opposite her, waiting patiently for a doctor to tell them it was okay to go inside Daniel's room. Cecilia sat silently reading the police report that someone from NYPD stopped by to give her a few hours ago. She was adding her comments, since she felt that there was not much mystery as to what happened in the store. There had been a closed-circuit security camera in the corner that Mr. Bertrand did not have the privilege of erasing.

Kim was trying to read a thick novel, but her eyes kept flitting between Sam lying on the couch fast asleep and Daniel's room. Eventually, she was too restless and asked the doctor if she could just sit near his bad and talk to him. She remembered when she was in a coma; the only thing that had kept her going was Valerie constantly chatting about this or that. She thought that it would help Daniel snap out of whatever was going on. Thank God he wasn't in a coma, but he was still walking the line between the dead and the living, and without any kind of guidance, he might just fall on the wrong side of that line.

The doctor agreed reluctantly, and Kim pulled up a chair next to his bed.

"Hey, Daniel, I know you can't hear the exact words I'm saying, but I know you can hear my voice. You did it. You finally got that monster off the streets for good. I'm sorry Daniel, but…you killed her. She's dead. Bertrand is still alive, but he needs a hip replacement – that register shattered his hip. I wouldn't worry about it. You did the right thing. That woman is alive because of you; even if you do look like complete crap right now."

She sighed; feeling like the message wasn't getting through. He looked like a corpse, lying there in the hospital bed. His face was devoid of its usual color and purple and green marred his cheekbone. Below that were four deep claw marks from Dr. Spectra's nails. Cecilia had been right. Hell had happened to him.

"God damnit, wake up! Listen to me! You…will…not…die! Did you hear that? You will not die!"

"Do you really think he can hear you?"

Kim jumped at the voice. It was Sam standing in the doorway in the purple scrubs. Her hair was dry and the majority was pulled up in a defiant little ponytail. The dark makeup that had been on her face earlier that day was gone and without it she seemed almost soft. She walked a few steps into the room, but was still nowhere near the bed where Daniel, or to her, Casey, lay. It was as if she was afraid to come near him; as if she would break him or that being near the bad would make everything she was going through real.

"Sometimes I do. But, I imagine being stuck in your head for so long with nothing to pay attention to can be a bit difficult."

"What happened?"

Her voice was breaking slightly, the pain and guilt was leaking through the strong front. It wasn't a façade though, Kim noticed. This girl was genuinely hard on the outside and halfway to the core, but she still felt. She may have been strong, but this was still the most terrifying thing she had ever experienced.

"He saved a woman from the organ harvester that has been running around the block."

Sam's eyes widened.

"What a brave guy. I can't imagine that a bookkeeper would have the courage for that – it's not exactly a risk-taking kind job."

Kim paled a bit. She still didn't know who 'Casey' really was. She should probably know before it was too late.

"Um…"

She was cut off.

"Could I ask who you are though? I guess you talked to Agent Thompson and already know who I am, but I don't know anything past your first name."

Kim smiled wanly.

"I'm Kim Possible, I'm his boss. Cecilia called me telling me the news and I took the quickest flight out of D.C. to get here."

Sam nodded, unsure of why a boss was taking such personal interest in someone she had not seen in months. But, her thoughts were cut off by a slight groan from the bed. She turned her head from the vividly haired woman.

"Oh my God, Daniel!" Kim cried suddenly, and moved to take his hand in hers.

Sam saw tears begin to run down the older woman's cheeks. Wait…who was Daniel? Sam backed away from the bed a few steps quickly and warily. Why had everyone told her his name was Casey? Why did he tell her he was Casey? His name was Daniel? He had lied to her face about something important like his name?

"Daniel?" she repeated back, her eyes filled with confusion and hurt.

His cerulean eyes locked with hers and she saw the haze of physical pain behind them.

"Yep," he laughed quietly, barely raising his slightly hoarse voice.

So it wasn't just some slip up on Kim's part…he really had lied to her. Anger boiled underneath her skin. What else had he lied to her about?

"What about _Casey_?" she spat at him before turning on her heel and running out of the ICU.

"Oh God, Kim, you didn't tell her?" Daniel said behind the glass, so quietly that Kim had to lean in a bit to hear him.

"I think you should, wait here."

"Um, I don't really have a choice here…"

She was out the door before he had the chance to finish his thought. Kim looked down the hallway and saw the slightly familiar ponytail walking away quickly. She followed the pale young woman and caught up to her right before the elevators. The security light shone through the large window and cast an eerie light in Sam's already unusual eyes.

"Wait Sam, stop!"

She turned and Kim finally saw the livid features accompanying the ghostly eyes.

"Why should I? No one has really bothered to tell me what's going on. I walked into a crime scene this morning! There was blood everywhere! A murder, Miss Kim Possible, a freaking murder! And now, I find out that Casey is actually Daniel, and has been lying to me about his name? How am I supposed to know that you all weren't trying to steal my family's money!"

"Samantha, calm down and come with me, Daniel will explain everything to you."

Sam just stood there in her scrubs, openmouthed. That Kim lady just called her Samantha. No one ever, ever, ever, called her Samantha. But, the commanding tone in Kim's voice was hypnotic, and she found herself following the redhead back to the ICU. She had only heard law enforcement use that tone so effectively.

The sliding glass door shut behind her, leaving her all alone in the room with Ca- no, Daniel. She reluctantly met his eyes, tying to ignore the bruise and scratches on his face.

"So she managed to drag you back here with just that tone of voice?"

"What the hell is going on?" Sam snapped harshly.

He may have been dying a few minutes ago, but now he was alive and she felt like she could be angry without him having a heart attack and just keeling over.

He looked down tiredly, the lamp beside his bed casting a stark light on half his features, leaving the rest in shadow. After a moment he let out a labored breath; Sam winced as she saw that there was a bit of blood leaking through his hospital gown, and what she guessed were bandages beneath that. His pure blue eyes locked with hers – the pain of some internal struggle finally surfacing above the physical pain.

'"My name is Daniel Fenton."

"I got that much," Sam said dismissively.

He sensed her distrust, so he continued.

"I am twenty-five years old, and am turning twenty-six."

"And that is completely relevant," she cut in sarcastically.

"Sam! Focus, please? I got stabbed in the lungs twice and once in the arm; twice with a scalpel and once with the closed point of surgical scissors. I'm trying really, really hard to stay conscious and tell you what's going on."

That shut her up pretty quickly. Ordinarily, she would have been vehement, but Daniel had a point. Then she registered what he said.

"Oh my God, how the hell did you get…?"

He smiled a bit and beckoned for her to sit down in the seat that Kim had previously occupied.

"I am an FBI agent. No, Sam don't give me that look, I am an FBI agent. I work in D.C., and I just started working for the Feds last August. I was a police officer for the Baltimore Police Department for three years before that."

"So this was a case? Why were you working on it?"

"Like I said, I just got hired. That means that I still have a series of training procedures to go through before I can become a full agent – I'm still only a trainee. Maybe the battle wounds will earn me a promotion."

He paused with a smile, his mind occupied with thoughts that she could never begin to guess.

"I was undercover, Sam. It's part of the process of becoming a full agent, but caught the bastard – or should I say bitch. Regardless, Dr. Spectra won't ever see the light of day."

A bitter, confused look flitted across his features. Sam understood immediately. That body bag she had seen was the body of the killer he was trying to stop. It was that organ harvester that Sam had briefly read a psychological profile of a few months back. Daniel had killed her in self defense; she could see that he was torn – that he wasn't sure if he made the right call.

"I think you did the right thing."

His face snapped up and his baby blue eyes met hers. A small, appreciative smile flitted across his face.

"What she said about isn't true either. You aren't weak. That woman is alive and Spectra is dead because of you. You saved a lot of people there, not just one."

The blue orbs widened in shock and incredulity.

Sam rolled her eyes and replied to his silent question, "I almost have my Ph.D., Daniel. You would think that a psychologist would have some clue as to what is going on in that head of yours."

Daniel relaxed and closed his eyes for a second.

"Thanks Sam."

"No problem."

"I mean, for waiting for me to wake up, for coming here in the first place, and for helping me unpack those books. I guess I never really expected you to do any of those things."

She was mildly shocked – he was thanking her for the gesture? She should be thanking him. He kind of gave her a second chance. At that moment the door slid open and Kim stood in the doorway with her cell phone in hand.

"The director says that you're coming home, Daniel. In about a week, when the doctors estimate you will be able to handle the plane ride home."

She gave him a smile.

"I listened, Kim."

She had been turning to leave, but whipped her head around in surprise.

"You told me not to die. I didn't," he finished with a goofy grin.

"Good night Danny," she said before sliding the door behind her.

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**REVIEW. They encourage me to write better, longer chapters. I am absolutely fed up with the lack of reviews. IS IT REAAALLLLYY THAT HARD TO CLICK THE LITTLE BUTTON AND TYPE SOME WORDS? You all are lazy. I have 5 reviews for 9 chapters. Do you know how hard I've worked to get this story written? PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, take the time to REVIEW! No more updates until I get at least ten reviews. That means five more!**

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	10. There's Nothing More

A/N: No, I'm not dead. I never was. I said I would update after I reached ten reviews, but i decided that nine was enough, since I had a few people PM with nice comments. I hope this chapter will make up for my month-long absence, as it is the longest chapter I have written so far, as well as the most thought out, edited and carefully planned. There was a reason it took this long for me to update. I will be going to Georgetown next sunday for a week, and i will have computer access but probably not enough to crank out the chapter. I am also going on vacation, so dont expect another upload until the end of July, but please stick around and keep reading, becuase this story is not only dear to my heart, but quite long.

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Chasing Phantoms

Part I: Mad World

Chapter Ten: There's Nothing More

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1.

"Finally, you're awake."

Daniel blinked groggily, the sterile white room coming into focus. Kim stood at the foot of his hospital bed, leaning gently against the footboard. Glittering early morning sunlight turned her red strands a fiery gold and her eyes lit up the same color.

"I was beginning to think you had fallen unconscious again, how are you feeling?" she finished with a small smile.

"It feels like I've been hit by a truck. What day is it today?" his said quietly, but with immense effort and strain in his voice, as if he had just had the wind knocked from his chest.

"It's just Wednesday. You haven't missed anything important."

He closed his eyes for a second and then opened them again. Kim noticed the slight wince behind the motion – she had underestimated how much pain her agent was in, or perhaps, the medication was just now wearing off. Three stab wounds – she just couldn't imagine the agony Daniel was in. He was stronger than she had thought.

She missed having him at her bullpen – he kept Tucker from bothering her too much, as well as the fact that he reminded her of something – someone maybe. Perhaps, it was just something about him that kept her captivated. He was so young, and already so broken, and yet, he never gave up on anyone. He never gave up on the human race. She guessed that was what he reminded her of: the humanity still left in the human race. It was why she did the job she did – because humanity meant too much for her to waste away in the CIA. It had no soul, no humanity left to her.

Their eyes locked for a moment, and she was just about to open her mouth to say something, but her train of thought was destroyed with the insolent ring of her standard issue cell phone in her pocket.

"Hold on Daniel," she cut him off with a lifted finger.

She picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

"_Agent Possible, I presume you are in New York checking up on our newest charge."_

"Yes, Director, I am in New York, at Columbia Hospital's ICU."

"_How is Daniel Fenton doing? I know he will pull through, but sometimes when these things happen one cannot be sure what the outcome will be. He alone can guide his fate."_

"Er, ok Director you're rambling again…he's fine by the way, he pulled through last night."

"_When will it be safe for him to come back home?"_

"He should be able to soon"

"_Well, Possible I need him home today, as in, now. As long as he isn't in critical condition anymore, then he flies in about fifteen minutes."_

"What! No! The…"

"_Agent Possible, do not argue with me. I have already sent my personal plane to New York. An ambulance will take him to the hospital. Do not worry; everything is as it should be."_

"…ok, ok, as you wish…"

"_Also, I would like to inform you that our coroner, Dr. Miller, passed away yesterday evening. It was a heart attack; his autopsy confirmed that it was all those cheeseburgers that did him in, so to speak."_

"WHAT! Now how is that for irony…?"

"_Well, actually, Kim Possible, that would be considered tragic. The two are often confused by the less-than-all-knowing public."_

"ok, tragic, director, not ironic…"

"_I am on the lookout for a new coroner. Unfortunately, I do not have all the time in the world, so I have asked Will Du to help me out, he is head of the Homicide Department, after all. Now, now, Kim Possible, do not get all huffy with me, you know everything is as it should be and it be best if you do not meddle too much in these affairs of management. However, if you were to find me a coroner before he does, then I would not mind. For now, I need to finalize the reports and then we can move on."_

Kim sighed, shaking the shock and slight jealousy from her mind and focusing on the business at hand.

"Hurry please, we need one just as good as he was…"

"_I don't yet have details about the funeral service, but I expect you to be there."_

"Yes, I will be there for the service…"

"_Good day, Kim Possible."_

"Good day Ira."

She snapped her phone shut with finality. Danny had heard only her half of the conversation.

"Time to come home, Daniel."

He sat bolt upright, a ripple of sheer agony crossing his features that faded as he masked the pain in his chest.

"We're leaving today! I'm in no condition to take the plane home and…"

"…And WHAT, Agent Fenton? You will have top notch medical care at Suburban Hospital, and you are flying in one of the Director's planes. What is your issue with coming home today? I thought that you would want to get back right away. You have been away long enough. Your team misses you."

A flicker passed across Kim's eyes, unidentifiable to any but her as a fleeting feeling of sadness.

"How am I supposed to tell Sam that I'm leaving? She only visits after school."

Kim sighed and closed her eyes. She saw this coming the moment she saw that strange girl curled up on the floor in purple nurse's scrubs, asleep, her hair half-wet and plastered to the floor. There had been enough tension between her and Daniel that Kim could have cut through it with a knife. Sam's amethyst eyes betrayed a fire that made Kim fear, momentarily, for her authority.

But Kim could see that at that moment when she had called the girl back, that her fire had gone out. Kim was no psychologist, but she was a damn good cop. She knew Sam wouldn't be the same after what she had seen at the music store, and especially after what she had seen happen to Danny. Kim made a mental note and stashed away to the back of her mind for later use. Right now, she had no time to think about that option. She had a job to do.

"Attached, Daniel? Have you gotten attached? I can't help you there. We leave now. I'm going to talk to the head nurse; we will take you in an ambulance to the airport. See you again in five minutes."

He sat alone in his overly sterile room, watching the fiery haired woman stride down the hallway, her movements quick, fluid, and powerful. She reminded him of a panther. He had only been doing his job, and now look what condition he was in. At least, he thought, the woman had pulled through and was safe. She was alive because of him. His mind flashed back to his first moments waking up. The look on Sam's face had killed him over again – like he had betrayed her.

She had been the only person willing to strike up a conversation with an out of place used book shop owner, especially in a neighborhood that had been getting lots of deaths recently. She was either the bravest civilian he had ever met, or she was nuts. Really, really nuts. He hoped it was the former.

He sighed heavily, but immediately regretted the action as another wave of pain shuddered through him. His chest ached with every breath. God, he had really let so many people down already…now Sam was going to hate him forever. He would just leave her without saying goodbye. God, he had messed up.

Why was he so absent minded? Always forgetting things…that's what always got him into trouble. His morphine clogged brain never thought to simply ask Tucker to look up her number or ask Kim for it. As an FBI agent, she was sure to have gotten contact information from Sam, but of course, the thought never came to his mind as he was naturally absent-minded and not always clearly practical or logical.

A pretty nurse opened the sliding door. He would have usually smiled, but the pain in his chest was burning a hole in his heart. At this point the physical pain blurred over with the blame, the regret, the anguish welded into his memory so vividly. She checked his pulse, and gently felt his forehead. He couldn't really tell what she looked like. He guessed that some more people walked into his room – he couldn't really be sure. At this point his vision was going black and fuzzy around the edges. He welcomed it; a release from the pain was all he wanted at this point.

2.

"Hey, Daniel, I came as quickly as I could…"

She stopped when she saw the bed occupied by an elderly man, a ventilator buzzing as it pumped air through tubes into his lungs, his chest rising and falling with effort that was not his own. Whirling around to find the nearest nurse, Sam quickly grabbed the hand of a passing doctor – one she recognized to have been Daniel's by his scruffy white stubble, his tall, impressive presence and strait, regal nose.

"Where did Daniel go?"

"Miss, if you have a question about a patient, please go the receptionist, she will take your question…"

"No! I can't wait forever while some bimbo that became a secretary because she couldn't get into college punches stuff into the computer with her fake pink talons and chats with coworkers! You're his doctor! Daniel Fenton? Does that ring a bell?"

"Miss, calm down please, you're making a scene."

"DAMN RIGHT I'M MAKI-"

He cut her off with an angry, "For the sake of these patients, Miss, BE QUIET."

Sam was shocked into silence. She was used to pushing people around to get what she wanted, and this was a bit new to her.

"Daniel Fenton was transferred this morning to a hospital near Washington D.C. I wish I knew any more than that, but I'm afraid there's nothing more of this I can tell you. Now please, I have rounds to do, I'm sincerely sorry I cannot be of more help."

He leaned in closer for a second and whispered to her, "And please don't harass the receptionists. Their high school diplomas didn't train them to handle people like you."

With a serene, unflappable smile on his aging face he turned back the direction he was heading and waltzed down the hallway. A flutter of emotions passed across Sam's face, one by one, but so quickly that if one were to be watching her, it was a whisper of a thought that flashed in her eyes.

He left? He left just like that, without telling her anything, without leaving a note, without a forwarding address? Maybe he just thought she wasn't worth keeping in touch with. After all, they had just met less than a week ago. Despite all that, everything had seemed so natural, as if they had supposed to meet by some cosmic fate. She brushed off the thought. Thoughts like that were for cheesy, desperate girls who had no control over their lives. Destiny was for the unmotivated.

If Daniel didn't want her in his life, she wouldn't try to find him. It had been nice while it lasted, but it made sense that he would use this as a clean break from her. This way, there were no awkward exchanges of messages; there was no worry about whether they would stay in touch or not. It was easier this way. She walked out of the hospital for the last time, opening her bat umbrella to block the unwelcome March sunshine.

3.

Daniel came to just as he felt the jolt of the plane hitting the runway. He was dazed and groggy, strapped down to a stretcher a bit too tightly for comfort. The person sitting next to him looked vaguely like Kim, but he couldn't really tell because her hair was turning orange and then red, then to purple and back to red. It confused him almost as much as math had confused him in high school. He tried to sit up and figure out where he was because it kind of felt like the ground was moving, but just as he did, a flash of agonizing pain ripped through his body as his chest tightened against the restraints, his delicate ribs splintering in the same places they had been set the day before..

Before he fainted again, he vaguely heard Kim's voice say, "Daniel, you're an idiot."

Maybe he was…he didn't really know.

4.

Where the heck was he? His first complete thought when waking up again was that this room was kind of bright. He squinted and blinked, tying to remove the foggy layer from his vision. His black lashes lifted and his stark blue eyes cleared enough to bring the room into focus. Sunlight was pouring into the room from a large window. He could vaguely make out the National Institutes of Health building across Old Georgetown Road. Bethesda: He was in Suburban Hospital. He was home – well, sort of, Home was technically ten to fifteen minutes north of where he was, in a tiny old apartment behind a Safeway and across the street from the railroad, but Bethesda was close enough.

Someone shifted in a chair to the right of his bed. Daniel turned his head away from the window and caught the light teal eyes of his current partner.

"You look like crap."

"Thanks Tucker."

Daniel had to admit that he probably didn't look so great. A large greenish-purple bruise marred his left cheekbone; the right side of his face was ravaged with four long, red, raw claw marks that were barely covered by a couple band-aids to keep the wounds clean; gauze stiff with blood criss-crossed his chest and back; his right arm was bandaged from the lower bicep to his shoulder. He shifted that arm uncomfortably. The bandage was a bit too tight, and his veins were raised all along the lower portion of his arm

"How's everyone doing?" Daniel asked quietly.

"Fine. Everyone is bored to death though. Our team has had no new cases, so we've been helping out some other ongoing murder investigations. I've beaten the high score in online Tetris four times in the past week. Valerie's working on a personal project, and Kim hasn't slept in four days – first because you were in critical condition, and now because she's trying to find a new coroner."

"Well, Kim's always the one to pick up the slack in the department."

"I know, she finished all of Agent Flagg's paperwork the month after you left, and that's a seven year old stack there," added Tucker.

"Wait, Tucker, you said she is looking for a new coroner? What's wrong with Dr. Miller? He's always been our medical examiner."

Daniel looked a little confused and a little panicked at the same time. Dr. Miller was old enough to have done autopsies on dinosaurs, that, and he ate a cheeseburger everyday for lunch, which was enough to make Daniel fear the worst – that Dr. Miller hadn't stopped working of his own free will. After a moment Tucker shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Dr. Miller died of a heart attack Wednesday morning, a few hours before the Director had Kim pick you up from the hospital. She always said that his burger-a-day ritual would eventually bite him in the ass. I'm sorry, Daniel, that it's me telling you this and not Kim."

Danny closed his eyes, trying to process another death. It always took him longer to really understand the gravity of what happened when he even remotely knew the person who had died. His mind flashed far back to a memory he had tried so hard to fade from his mind.

'_I'm sorry, Daniel that it's me telling you this, and not your parents. They were experts, after all."_

"_No, they'll come back, sir. They'll come back. Like you, said, they're experts. This is all just…a mistake! Just a big mistake."_

_He looked past the glass of the waiting area of the crime lab, not seeing the government official next to him trying desperately to comfort the boy, who was clearly in denial. Danny watched a forensic scientist carry boxes of evidence past him and into their little labs for testing – stuff that they shouldn't have taken from his home. _

_The officer, dressed to the nines in an expensive suit, Green Bay Packer's logos as cufflinks, his sleek silver hair tied into a long ponytail, left wordlessly. The boy would come out of shock eventually. There was no way the most notorious bio-terrorist cell in the world would just kidnap the two leading experts on their organization. People who knew that much had to be dead, after all, the blood that they had found all over the house suggested a struggle – and not an easy one. But, the boy wasn't going to admit anytime soon that his parents could have lost that fight._

_Danny heard the clicking of heels stop in front of him where he was sitting, head in his hands._

"_Danny…"_

"_What do you want Jazz?" he snapped at her as he lifted his head to meet her gaze._

_She looked sad and quiet. She thought they were dead, just like all the cops assigned to their case. Taking off her white doctor's coat, she sat down next to him on the old bench and pulled his head to her chest. He offered no protest, instead hugging his sister close, not caring that her long red hair tickled his face. Her chest shook silently and she held her little brother closer. Danny closed his eyes and held on to her, trying to avoid the flashes of memory. _

_It was supposed to have been a celebration – he had just finished his aerospace engineering program at Georgetown University and was coming home to Amity Park. Jazz was driving in from nearby Chicago where she was in her third year of medical school. The family was going to be together again, just like they had been when Danny and Jazz were still in high school. _

_Neither of the Fenton children really understood what their parents did for a living. Sure, they had contracts with the CIA to make weapons and design new technology, but only until the day they had walked into their home to find it torn apart, the basement lab splattered in blood, half of their parents technology missing, and both Maddie and Jack Fenton nowhere to be found did Danny and Jazz realize that what their parents had been doing was serious. They weren't the nut jobs that most of the town, and occasionally, their children, believed them to be. They were orphans now._

Danny shook himself out of his daze to find Tucker standing next to him, gripping his good shoulder.

"Dude, are you ok? You totally spaced out there, man, muttering things and everything."

"Don't call me Daniel."

"What?"

"Danny. Call me Danny or Dan if you want. Daniel sounds so stuffy."

"Er…Ok, Danny…"

Tucker was a little confused by Danny's behavior. His little space cadet act a few seconds ago had almost had him calling for a nurse. Before he had any chance to question Danny's peculiar behavior, Tucker's phone went off.

"Hey Kim…yes, I'm at the hospital…no, no, nothing's wrong, Danny's fine…yes, I'll be right there."

He hung up the phone with a snap.

"Sorry, man I wish I could stay and fill you in, but Kim apparently has a lead she wants me to follow."

"Go ahead. This country needs you," Danny finished with a joking smile.

Danny watched Tucker walk away, but his lids closed without any prompting. He was just…so…tired.

5.

"_Danny! Danny, there you are! Oh my God, you've gotten so tall!"_

"_Jazz! I'm twenty-two, I haven't grown since you saw me last Christmas!"_

_The red-haired woman embraced him tightly, as if it had been ages since she had seen him, and not four months since she had seen him. She squeezed him so tightly; he dropped the suitcase in his hand, which caused many fellow weary travelers to look his way. Promptly turning a shade of fuchsia at the attention, Danny desperately pulled at Jazz, gasping for air._

"_Too…much…love… Gross! Geroff me Jazz!"_

_She finally pulled away, but not before planting a few red lipstick marks on his cheek which he hastily wiped away, turning bright red. _

"_Come, on Danny, you know I love you! Jesus Christ, it's sweltering, let's get your bags and get out of this airport!"_

"_Every time I spend a few months away, you end up peppier than ever. Don't you think that eventually, you'll just run out of steam?"_

"_Never!" she added with zeal as she daintily made her way to her car in the parking lot, a slightly embarrased, but obviously happy Danny Fenton behind her._

"_Jazz! I'm not getting in this chick car with you!"_

_Her turquoise Volkswagen Beetle stood in front of him and he groaned, ashamed to be seen in such a girly car. At twenty-four, his sister still found ways to embarrass him in front of the whole world. He looked around for another car that could be Jazz's, but when he saw the bumper stickers on the back, he knew there was just no escape. I mean, who else would have 'Forever Jung,' 'Sometimes a cigar, is just a cigar,' and 'Have you hugged your inner child today?' as bumper stickers?_

"_You want to walk all the way to Amity Park from Chicago? Unless you've got a super high-tech space jetpack in that suitcase," she said gesturing to his tiny carry-on, "I wouldn't count on you making it home in time for dinner."_

"_Ugh, fine, but if you try and psycho-analyze me in the car, I will key your little bug and slash the tires."_

"_Oh, Danny, quit complaining and put your suitcase in the backseat."_

_She got in the front seat as Danny scrambled to get his suitcase into the backseat through the little space the folding passenger seat allowed._

"_Oof! Jazz, did you have to buy a two-door car?"_

_He finally managed to stuff his suitcase into the car, and he unfolded the passenger seat to make room for himself. As he closed the passenger side door, Jazz started the engine and rolled down the convertible top. _

_For an hour they drove down the expressway towards Amity Park. For an hour, things were just as they had been when Danny and Jazz were both in high school, when she would drive him to school, when she nagged him incessantly, and when he could just talk to her about everything. He had almost forgotten how much he actually loved her, being away from his family for so long. He didn't want to admit it, but he missed his parents deeply. Hearing his mother's and father's voice the day before had him just yearning to see their faces – he hadn't seen them in months and the few pictures he had weren't enough._

_Jazz pulled into their driveway at their old, slightly eccentric townhome in the city that most certainly would have violated building codes in any other place. Yep, it was their house all right – the giant sign saying "Fenton Works" kind of gave it away, making it unmistakably theirs._

"_Come on Danny, hurry up and get your bag! Mom and Dad are expecting us!"_

"_Coming Jazz! Geez, it's not they're going to vanish in the three extra seconds it takes me to get my bag!"_

_Jazz unlocked the front door and swung it open, announcing, "Mom, Dad, Danny and I are home!"_

_Danny stood behind her on the front stoop, holding his suitcase. As she swung the door open and they walked inside, Danny immediately noticed that something was clearly wrong. His house had been completely trashed. Jazz stopped in her tracks when she noticed the disorder, while Danny kept walking further into the house after setting his suitcase down. He crouched slightly, poised for attack if someone were to appear. Jazz walked carefully behind him, apprehensive and fearful. _

"_Mom, Dad, where are you guys?" Danny called from the main hallway leading into the kitchen._

_The mess got significantly worse when they got to the kitchen –the cabinets had been torn from the walls, the refrigerator was on end, and his father's expired ham was nowhere to be found. They creeped silently down the hallway towards the basement. Jazz stopped suddenly behind Danny and let in a sharp intake of breath. Noticing her cessation of movement, Danny turned around and found what she was staring at. His heart fell to his stomach when he saw what she was looking at, and the expression on Jazz's face was not much different from what Danny was feeling._

_The wall that usually held their family photos was smeared in blood. Their most recent photo taken as a family – the family at Thanksgiving dinner two years ago – was missing from its frame, the glass shattered and stained with little rivers of blood._

"_Come on Danny, maybe it was just a freaky lab thing, let's keep going…"_

_She grabbed her brother's hand and led the way to the laboratory in their parents' basement, her heart feeling more and more dread at every blood stain she avoided slipping on. At the foot of the stairs both she and Danny stood sill and unmoving, taking in the wreckage before them. The lab was completely destroyed. Beakers, computers, half-finished weapons lay scattered around the space, broken in the struggle that both children assumed took place._

"_Where are Mom and Dad?" Danny asked, breaking the silence. _

_His eyes caught two strips of fabric stuck on one of his parents' latest unfinished experiments. One was vaguely blue, the other vaguely orange. Both fabrics were distinctly from his parents' usual HAZMAT suits, but they were stained with blood, and the pool of blood spatter that originated near the shreds of fabric dominated the wreckage in the lab. His stomach churned and he wretched into the nearest trashcan as Jazz caught what he had discovered and froze, her breath coming sharp and fast, her head spinning. Danny shook violently and slithered down to the floor, slipping in a pool of blood. _

_This couldn't be happening. Not to their parents._

6.

"Hey Kim, what's the lead you wanted me to follow?"

Kim sat at Danny's long-unused desk, scribbling information on a notepad, since there was no more space on the white board for notes. She had purple bruises underneath her eyes from the past few days, but Tucker noticed that they were less prominent than they had been yesterday. _So she had gotten some sleep after all_, he thought to himself as he rounded the corner and entered the bullpen.

Her hair was sleek and combed back in to a perfect ponytail as usual, and her face looked fresher than it had in days. The stress of Danny's condition was gnawing at her, as well as her frantic search for a new coroner. He didn't really understand why it was that she had to find a new coroner, after all, wasn't that the job of Agent Will Du? He was head of the Homicide Department, after all… It probably had something to do with the fact that Kim was always just trying to out-do him.

He laughed to himself, "Haha, out-Du him!"

Danny would have laughed, but Kim gave him a disapproving glare at his slightly lame sense of humor. He walked up to Danny's desk, wondering what it was that she had found after a five-month stalemate on the case; as well as wondering why it was that she was sitting at Danny's desk, and not her own. Her desk was just as convenient, right?

"Look this Tucker," she said, pointing down to the notes she had just made on her notepad, "Elijah Brown, valedictorian at Columbia Law, Roger Elliot, top of his class at architecture school and already had a contract with some of the world's richest people and institutions, John White, growing steadily in fame and recognition as the CEO of a tutoring company. Look at what this killer is doing, what do you think it is?"

Tucker looked blank. Danny was good at the whole connecting the dots and making conclusions business, not Tucker.

"Umm…collecting?" he said, vaguely guessing. Kim gave him a weird look.

"What? I was thinking about when I collect tech, I never buy the same model twice, and I always get the best I can afford on this government salary…I was actually kind of guessing…" he whined defensively.

"He is indeed collecting," Kim said pensively, "We didn't see it at first, but each body was missing something that the deceased found personal, important, and indispensible. White, our first victim, was missing his notepad – his friends, family, coworkers, all say that he never went anywhere without it. We couldn't find Elliot's sketchbook or Brown's Columbia Law School cufflinks. He's collecting. He's hunting. Everyone he kills is a prize."

"Wait…I was right?"

"Yes, Tucker," she said exasperatedly, "You were right. I'm a surprised as you are."

"HEY!"

She got up from Danny's desk, ignoring Tucker's indignation, and strode over to her own.

"Go over all the evidence again, Tucker, see if we missed something, and after that, call me."

She picked up her sidearm from her keyboard tray underneath the desk surface and checked it for bullets, cocking it once. It was quickly stashed away in the small of her back, and her black shirt concealed it.

"Where are you going?" Tucker asked, apprehensively eyeing her concealed weapon, knowing she was carrying at least two more.

"I am going to talk to the Director about our coroner issue. You, on the other hand, should visit Wade Load four floors down and look over evidence with him. You two are both geniuses, you should be able to find something new."

Tucker picked up the stack of files from his desk pertaining to the case and walked out of the department to the elevator down the hall, while Kim waited for the next one going up. Kim got off the last floor, a thin file in her hand. She walked into the Director's office without knocking, unannounced.

"Hello Kim Possible, good day so far I presume? I would have you brace yourself; precious things come at a price."

Kim frowned and furrowed her brow. The Director was always saying things, as if he knew what was going to happen long before she did. She met his reddish-brown eyes with her emerald ones as he spun around serenely in his chair to face her.

"Watching the street again, Ira?" Kim asked gently.

"What can I say? I love watching the street from above…it's like being able to see everything at once, the beginning, middle, and end. Most people only get to watch from the sidewalk," said the serene, only slightly aging man.

Kim only knew that Ira Chronus had been the Director of the FBI for forty years already, and before that, an agent. No one really knew his age, but to everyone he looked not a day older than fifty. His hair was steely silver and short, the only blemish she could see in his appearance was a scar running down his left cheek, but even that was not that prominent.

"You have a file for me? I see you have found a suitable coroner to take Dr. Miller's place."

She handed him the file, always a little off-put by his demeanor, the silky smooth voice, and his fiery eyes.

"Thank you, Kim Possible," he said as he began to flip through the file, "I think you have made a good choice, but I always had faith that you would."

Chills ran down her back whenever he spoke like that, and now was no different. Kim waited to be dismissed or addressed again.

"Agent Possible, I would like for you to check in on young Daniel Fenton at the hospital. He re-broke his ribs on my plane and was out for a week. Who knows what condition he is in now?"

"Yes, Ira."

"Careful, child. I don't want you getting overly emotional over this boy. He still has much to learn, as do you."

"Good day, Director," said Kim as she walked out of his office, strangely cluttered with old clocks wherever there wasn't a window.

She headed down to the ground floor where her black SUV was parked and hopped in. Turning the key in the ignition, she pulled out of the parking lot and drove up to Bethesda, far past the FBI building, past Washington D.C., and past the beltway, to get to Suburban Hospital.

He lay in his bed asleep, a heart monitor beeping so slowly that it was as if his heart were not even beating. His chest rose and fell at the same rate, his eyelids never flickering from his tranquil night. Kim pressed her forehead to the glass, worried. He had looked better the last time she had visited – he may have been asleep then too, but this time…this time was different. This time it seemed like he wasn't going to wake up anytime soon. She heard the delicate footsteps of a woman behind her and she turned around to face her.

"You better come with me to the waiting area, where you can sit down," the tall, willowy brunette said, pulling back wisps of gray hair back into a ponytail.

"What's wrong with him, Dr. Lira?" Kim adamantly asked the middle aged woman assigned to take care of Danny as he recovered at Suburban Hospital as she sat down gently in the waiting room chair, shaking from anxiety.

"I don't know for sure. I think it could be Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but I think he just needs rest. He was obviously distressed during his sleep, but as we tried to wake him up because we believed it was a night terror, but he just…wouldn't. He was obviously unconscious after that ordeal passed, but then about an hour later he slipped into a coma."

Kim sat down on the waiting room bench. She was exhausted, battered, and she didn't think her heart could take any more strain. The tremor of fear she had felt when Cecilia had first called had slowly gnawed its way into full fledged fear as she recounted what had happened. Her terror had become real, agonizing, as she had watched him struggle for his life – those precious hours he had spent walking the line between dead or alive. And now, he was back there again, just when she had thought it was all over, just when she had thought she could sleep soundly and have him back as an agent within just weeks. But her hope had died and all peace in her soul had fled with his consciousness, leaving her alone again.

"Is he…in a coma?"

"Yes. It seems as if some internal stressor pushed him to the point where he had to shut down his connection to his physical body. There's no telling how long it's going to take for him to wake up, if ever."

"He will wake up. The question is when."

7.

Sam sat on her black, satin covered bed cross-legged. Papers surrounded her from all sides, turning her bed an unpleasant shade of white. Her head was in her hands and she pulled gently at her short black hair. The papers were notes and rough drafts of her graduate thesis. It was the end of May, and she would get her doctorate in psychology in about a week, that is, if she ever finished her god-forsaken thesis. Technically, it was finished. She could get it bound and just plop it on Lancer's desk and get the placard she had slaved for for the past three years.

Unfortunately, there was something missing, something off about her thesis. It wasn't that her observation was incorrect. She still believed that personality and motivation were intertwined, that they were shaped by cognitive realizations or upheavals. She still believed that how we respond to tragedy in our lives determines the strength of our spirits and how motivated we are. It was just that Daniel was bothering her. It was the fact that she never got a really clear read on his personality, his motivation, and since he was the only person she was even remotely close to, it bothered her that there was no way she could include him in her thesis; that she couldn't grasp. Unfortunately, she didn't realize that it was never her thesis that was off, but her perception.

"_The Human Spirit as Determined by How We Respond to Great Upheaval"_

Sam sighed and picked up her last draft of her hundred page thesis and slipped it into a manila envelope. She sealed it and placed it in her bag. Tomorrow morning, she would give it to Lancer first thing.

Lilith croaked angrily from her tank.

"Sorry for not feeding you on time, miss prissy pants."

Removing her frog's food from a cabinet under the table that held the tank, she fed her slightly irritated pet. She gazed at the small green creature lovingly as it ate. There was not a single regret in her mind when she looked back at how she actually got her frog – she would have long been at the bottom of a medical disposal bin in one of her university's basic biology labs if not for Sam.

There was nothing else for her to do now. Sam shoved the papers off of her bed and left her room to fix herself a cup of coffee. The mug brewed slowly, and to pass the time, she turned on the recycled-plastic television she had bought three years ago with her parents' trust fund money. Flipping idly through the channels, she stopped at a news channel at the sound of coffee maker finishing its brew. She took her black mug with violet spider decorations from under the drip of the coffee maker and turned around to see what was on the news. At what she saw, she let her mug fall to the floor and the boiling coffee spilled all over the black tile of her kitchen, scalding Sam's feet. The mug shattered upon impact, far beyond repair.

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**...to be continued...**

**A/N: REVIEW. They encourage me to write better, longer chapters. I cannot guarantee an update before July 25th, becuase I have other things that i will be doing, but I would like about 5 more reviews in that period. **

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**Is the setting and plot elements as they are presented in the story clear enough? **

**What doesn't seem to make sense when you read it?**

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**This is the first story i posted, and ive been getting good readership, but a measly number of reviews. I really, really, just want to know what you think. If you liked it, all I need is a few encouraging words and maybe some questions. I will ask kindly, if you have favorited or put this story on alert, please make a point to review at least once.**

**The people who have reviewed or PMed me have given me some reaallllyy good ideas, especially Quantos Prime - There are some bits in chapter six that were created with your help, as well as a huge chunk of this chapter. Your help has been priceless.**

**Anyways, thank you. You all, and my love of Danny Phantom, encourage me to keep writing =]**


	11. The Words You've Lost

A/N: Nope, still not dead. School's starting in a few weeks, and my scedule is loaded, so updates will be as sparse as they have been the past few months. I am not giving up on this story, but it would really help if you guys reviewed me. I update faster when i get a bunch of encouraging little notices in my inbox...

Hope this chapter was worth the wait :)

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Chasing Phantoms

Part I: Mad World

Chapter Eleven: The Words You've Lost

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1.

"It's been a while, Kimberly Ann."

Kim had been at the opposite end of the hospital floor when she had first seen him standing there, but she had known who it was right then – there was no mistaking the man that stood imperially in front of the glass of Daniel's room, his back to her as he peered into the room through open blinds. She could never forget him: the man that had turned her out the minute she was no longer viable to him; the man who had put her friends and family at risk countless times; the man who had always put the job before anyone he came in contact with. Though she was not privy to his personal life, she usually had a good idea of his motives. Unfortunately, what he was doing in the hospital was a concept completely strange to her.

The man didn't turn towards her when she finally stood beside him, staring at Danny lying quietly on the hospital bed. A few bandages remained on his chest and wrapped around his upper arm, but his face had long healed, but he obstinately maintained a deathly slow and even breathing, and his heart beat evenly and sluggishly. He addressed her without removing his eyes from the hauntingly still boy. His long silver ponytail disappeared from view, though when a moment later he turned his head and he met her emerald gaze with a steely, cold gray one. His thin, angular face showed the wear of fifty or so years, an impeccable Italian three-piece suit was accessorized with a slightly ostentatious Green Bay Packers tie and matching cuff links. Still, there was something off about him that she couldn't pinpoint.

"These five years seem to have taken a toll on you."

Kim looked at him sharply, indignation rising in her chest. What the hell was he playing at? Was he taunting her mistake so many years ago that had cost Kim her job? Still, as she glared at him unwaveringly, she could see exactly what was different about him. His steely gray, unfeeling eyes were a lot less cold that they had been when she'd seen them last – when he had expressionlessly handed her the last performance report she would ever receive, stating, without any hope for care or mercy, in the cold black typeface, that she was no longer qualified for field work because of the severity of her injury.

"You would be a bit worse for wear yourself if you'd seen what I've seen these past few years," she snapped back coldly, no sympathy or remorse in her voice.

"You have no idea, do you? You've always sat in the confines of your office, the safety of an alias and a cover, fighting a supposed 'evil' from afar, never having it graze your skin, never breathing it in, never actually understanding it. You have no idea how much true evil resides in the hearts of man," she hissed angrily under her breath.

For too long she had been angry with him, but she now knew that the work she had done for the CIA, for Vlad Masters, and for her country was soulless and empty, void and without true meaning. It had taken her years of case files, hundreds of tear-streaked faces, and thousands of photographs of the beaten, bludgeoned, stabbed, shot, burned, mangled and dehumanized to realize that.

Strange to her was the softness in his eyes. It was unsettling, and she clenched her jaw adamantly to keep away a niggling feeling deep in the back of her mind. Her former boss never broke her glare, his gaze far from angry.

"Do not be so quick to judge Kimberly Ann," he said quietly, barely above a whisper.

Kim's emerald eyes narrowed perceptively, mixed feelings preventing her from betraying any real range of emotion to his trained eye. Her feelings and thoughts changed too fast for him to accurately gauge. She was not one to admit she was wrong, and the idea of calling Vlad Masters a compassionate and deep human being was a bit hard for her to swallow. Kim was not one to let go of everything that had passed between them years ago for a pair of sad gray eyes.

"Why are you here?" she accused, her gaze hard and unwavering.

"You know very little, Kimberly Ann, don't you?" he said serenely, the full force of his years and the toll of his profession showing through his usually composed and carefully blank face. There was no condescension, no arrogance, no accusation, and no mockery in his voice.

"Why are you here," she asked again, just as adamantly, but with a tone of pleading gentleness soaking through her carefully crafted exterior.

"To see Daniel," Vlad finished, almost defeated.

Before she could even ask why, Vlad continued.

"Daniel Fenton was the son of my two best friends, Madeline and James Fenton. I have not seen any of them in a few years, but I felt like a visit was something I owed him, especially after everything that I put their family through."

"What happened? You said he was their son, not that he is their son…"

"You don't know? I thought everyone had heard of what happened to the Fentons…"

"Obviously not, sir."

He sighed, and she could see from his stance that it was a memory he had relived many times, a story he was very familiar with, and one that had changed him forever. She barely knew the man that stood before her today.

"They were killed in their home for their information on the Ghosts, their house ransacked and equipment stolen. Daniel and his sister, Jasmine, came home for summer vacation to find their parents gone, the house absolutely covered in blood. Technically, there is no evidence to prove they are really dead, since their bodies were never found. Unfortunately, there is no chance of them still being alive. They knew too much about the Ghosts, and the amount of blood on scene was enough to paint the walls of the house. There is no way either one of them survived the blood loss."

Kim swallowed, her eyes wide and shocked, and asked quietly, as if she could not quite find her voice, "How old was Danny?"

"Twenty-two years old; he had just graduated from college with a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering."

Part of her want to vomit at the thought, and part of her was comforted by it. He lost his parents, yes, and they were dead, but he had graduated college already and didn't really depend on them, like he would have if he had been younger. It was a small blessing, she surmised, amidst all the pain. Her mind gently toggled and processed the information. He was only twenty five, almost twenty six, and he had been with the FBI for a year now, with five months of training before his official placement under her supervision.

Usually agents so new to the FBI and so young of age didn't work in units as intense as hers. Even she was too young to be the Unit Chief, but she had been the only one left, and was forced into her position at her young age. And, when it came to intensity of work, they were the second to last on the last resort chain. One more ounce of desperation would have handed cases over to the more-than-capable hands of the units at Quantico not far from D.C., such as the Behavioral Analysis Unit and its subunits.

But she had known Danny before he had joined the FBI; she had known him back when he was still only a few years out of college and working Baltimore Homicide. Her train of thought took her right back to where she had begun. Danny had been only out of college, meaning that he immediately forsook a career, and his dream, of being an astronaut for that of a law enforcement officer. Granted, his lifespan hadn't really been statistically shortened, but the unbelievable sacrifice he had made for the sake of his family and everyone he knew was something Kim could only begin to fathom.

"Why," she began to ask, feeling a bit reluctant to bring the topic up, "Why do you owe it to him?"

Vlad looked a bit surprised at her inquiry, but answered her to the best of his ability, despite the pain of all the memories, even if they were four years dead and buried.

"His parents worked for me under contract, and when they died, I looked into their disappearances with the local police department. It was sensitive information of course, and allowing the locals to just throw around confidential information was just beyond me, and I wouldn't have it, even if I legally do not have jurisdiction. I set them up to the job, and never expended my best friends and their children the protection allowed even the lowliest agents. It is, really, my entire fault."

Her phone rang shrilly and suddenly in the pocket of her unorthodox green cargo pants. Kim excused herself from the hall and from Vlad Masters' presence to take her call outside where calls were allowed.

"Special Agent Possible speaking."

"_Kim Possible, I trust you are well. I need you to introduce the lovely Miss Monique Simone to our building. You will be here in half an hour, since you are at Suburban Hospital no doubt on your lunch break. Because you know each other, it will be easier to have you give her a tour and help her set up a workspace."_

"Of course, Director, I will leave right away."

"_You may want to dismiss yourself from Director Masters before you leave. It would be terribly rude for you not to, seeing as he is quite a stickler for propriety."_

Director Chronus' words made her shiver a little, always feeling a bit strange when he seemed to know exactly where she was, exactly what she was doing, and exactly who she was with without any information on her part. The man was, well, weird.

"I won't forget. Good day, Director."

She snapped the phone shut and excused herself from Vlad, telling him that she was called back to work, but she couldn't escape the bit of his soul he had exposed – the bit of Danny's soul as well. His gray eyes haunted her.

2.

"God, girl, when are you gonna get a grip on yourself? I haven't seen you like this since Bonnie Rockwaller took your place as cheer captain because you broke your leg saving the world and everything!"

The usually strait-laced, fiery-haired agent groaned audibly despite the loud hum of people around her. Her red hair was fanned around her like a mane as she planted her face on the shiny bar counter, an amber colored drink a tumbler to her right.

"Mmmph mrrr muuughhh murr nuhhdd!"

The woman next to her raised a perfectly sculpted black eyebrow, one elbow casually sitting on the bar counter, a frothy blue drink in her hand. Her dark eyes inspected the scene before her, brow climbing higher with every passing moment. Eventually she raised the drink to her dark red lips and sipped elegantly at it, a smile carving into her face with appreciation at the taste.

"Honey, you've had one Scotch, you cannot possibly be slurring already," the woman with mocha-colored skin and perfect brows said exasperatedly as she tugged gently at Kim's shoulder with her free hand.

"Besides, you'll ruin your makeup, and there's nothing worse than unsightly makeup when you're going out – you'll scare off every available bachelor!"

Eventually the redhead raised her head from the bar, condensation covering the surface where her face had been a moment before.

"I don't want every available bachelor!" she pouted, a frown line forming between her equally perfect brows.

"No, you just want Ron Stoppable," the lady next to her pointed out with finality.

Kim narrowed her eyes for a moment, giving her old friend a long glare. She soon gave up and turned her eyes downward to her drink. Picking it up with purpose, she downed her Scotch in a single gulp.

"That's never going to happen, Monique, and I think that you know that," Kim finished, waving the bartender over.

"Scotch, three fingers, no ice," she called out to the tall, broody man behind the counter.

"…And a Pina Colada!" Monique managed to add, with a wink and a giggle, before he turned away.

"Do you remember when everything was easy? When all we cared about was the latest collection from Club Banana and who Josh Mankey was taking to Homecoming?"

"I feel you, girl. Life just had to bite us in the ass, didn't it, honey? These days I worry if it's gonna be my pretty ass on my autopsy table, with thirteen stab wounds, or eyes gorged out."

"I think what worries me the most is that none of it really touches me anymore," Kim sighed as the bartender came with her Scotch and a frothy white confection that was undoubtedly Monique's Pina Colada, "it's all clinical to me; everyone's a target or a victim, a loved one, an UnSub. They don't have names or family or real experiences to me anymore."

She downed her Scotch again in one sip.

"Am I jaded, Monique?" the young redhead implored of the impeccably dressed African-American woman on her right.

"Yes, you are about as jaded as you can get, honey buns. Now let's get sodding drunk after I tell the bartender to not let us go home with anyone, and call us a cab before two a.m., ok?"

"Aghh! I'm a federally employed law enforcement officer; I can't get wasted off my ass!" Kim all but shouted with a horrified expression on her face.

Monique looked Kim up and down, taking in her deep, emerald green dress; the v-neck that dipped low on her chest; the swinging, knee-length skirt of her dress. Her eyes quickly glanced to the red-head's small bag, and then to her thigh, where she could see the outline of a strap under the light knit jersey fabric. Trust Kim to be packing a gun in a holster around her thigh, plus a backup gun in her bag.

Monique rolled her eyes when she saw Kim's indignation at being so thoroughly looked-over and said, "Sweetie, you carry three guns on a regular basis, and you're packing two on your night out. It's a Saturday, for God's sake, if anyone creepy hits on you or tries to mug you, you have one of your guns to shoot him with."

"That's illegal. I'll get my badge and gun taken away."

Kim frowned and ordered another round of drinks, but Monique interrupted her order of Scotch and instead ordered her a Mojito, to which Kim had really no energy to oppose, since she was a little bit buzzed from her previous two drinks.

"Lighten up, girl. You'll sleep off the hangover tomorrow, and on Monday we get started on the good stuff. I haven't seen a dead body in a week, and I want to get started right away; make a good impression and all on the man upstairs."

"Ira? Oh, he already knows what kind of impression you're going to make, as well as what you'll wear on your first day on the job, and exactly who will like you right away, who will hit on you till the day you die – well, actually everyone knows that'll be Tucker – who will hate you then like you, and who will hate you forever and avoid you as much as possible."

"Oh no, you're not saying my outfits are predictable, are you?"

The redhead laughed throatily and fully for the first time in more than a year. She had missed the easy and carefree company of her best friend since high school, and even if Monique Simone dealt with dead people for a living, she had always been the person Kim could go to escape her job. It was no different now, even if she was reminded a bit of the times she had spent with Ron and Barkin at bars similar to this.

"Never, Monique, never."

"So, Kimmy, aside from what's going on with your practically adopted baby, Danny, and the fact that you're jaded and will never let go of Ron or Barkin, what's the drama?"

Kim choked a little on her Mojito, "Thanks, honey, for being so unobtrusively blunt."

"What are friends for?" Monique quipped in return, "But, you still haven't answered my question."

"It still amazes me that you became a M.E. You flounce around in your four inch Louboutins, and chat me up on the latest fashions out of Paris, and you're doing all that while cutting into a dead guy and playing with his internal organs," Kim replied with another sip of her drink, which she found pleasant and girly. It wasn't Bourbon, but it would have to do.

She continued after her sip of the fruity drink, "But to answer your question, honey, the only real drama is this case that I have almost no leads on. My best agent has been taken out of action, and I am irrevocably cursed."

Monique sighed and shook her head, her glossy black curls bouncing about her shoulders, "You're not cursed, for God's sake! Let's not talk about work. Your best friend since high school that you haven't seen in three years now has brought you out to a nice, elegant bar in Georgetown to wind down after a long week. As much as I love dead people, we can probably save the murder for Monday, okay?"

Kim put her drink down on the glossy black bar table and her green eyes glinted behind her elegant black liner. She hadn't been out in quite a while now, perhaps more than a year, and she bit her lip gently, thinking about how long overdue this night out was; about how long her favorite shoes had sat in the back of her closet. Her nude colored peep-toed heels now hung off of her toes, blending tastefully with the color of her skin. Her eyes met Monique's and Kim smiled again, for the second time that night.

Kim's phone beeped shrilly from her bag, and she suddenly froze. It was her work phone. Looking at the number, her face drained of the rosy flush she had acquired in the past two hours she had been sitting at the bar with Monique. The hospital was calling her at eleven-thirty in the evening, and she could only begin to fathom why; her thoughts leaned towards the negative options.

"Hello?" she asked tentatively, as Monique watched panic set in on her friend's face.

3.

"I can't believe she's making me consolidate evidence with an eighteen year old! An eighteen year old forensic scientist and computer technician with an IQ and online Tetris score to rival mine!" Tucker complained avidly to his companion across the metal table.

He sat on an old metal chair, crouched over the table between him and Valerie that was strewn with blueprints and mechanical parts. Valerie was intent on her work and fiddled determinately with the parts, indistinguishable to anyone but Tucker and Valerie. Their pet project had taken quite a long time to make, starting from scratch every time the device failed to work properly.

For four months they had tried their best to make the device work, and every time they managed to fix the thing that had gone wrong, something else decided not to work. So they danced around their project for months and months, and now it was the middle of April and they were sitting in an old abandoned lab in the basement of the FBI, where old file cabinets had been cleared away in the transfer from analog to digital ten years ago, and the silver watch on Valerie's wrist said that it was getting close to midnight.

Valerie slurped Ramen noodles from a Styrofoam cup, garnering envious glances from Tucker, who had not eaten in about twenty minutes. He never really held a reputation for patience when it came to food, especially anything that had anything to do with meat.

"Stop complaining, Tucker. You know you like him."

He merely grunted unintelligibly and went back to fiddling with the minute parts of what could have been a cell phone in another life.

"Ugh! God, when are we going to finish this damned project!" he complained loudly to her, "I mean, how on earth are we supposed to make a device that looks like a Blackberry, is equipped with sonar, infrared, and radio waves, not to mention have the ability of a high tech computer to hack into any system remotely and without detection, and on top of that, it actually had to make calls, secure and non-secure alike!"

Valerie giggled a bit at his frustration.

"It'll get done, as long as you stop getting so distracted by everything that comes within sensory distance."

"Are you saying I have a short attention span?" he asked; a teasing frown on his face.

"I'm saying you should stop staring at my boobs and make that infrared detector already."

She giggled even louder when she saw his face; he looked like a child who had gotten his hand caught stealing cookies from the cookie jar. He laughed too, but took her advice and went back to fiddling with the little parts, glancing back to the blueprint that served as a tablecloth to Valerie's late dinner.

"Tucker," Valerie started about half an hour later, placing everything she was doing down on the metal table.

"What?" he said petulantly, barely peering over his glasses to look at her, his entire focus on the device.

"Tucker, when will Danny wake up?" she said quietly, almost sadly, "Imaging missing a birthday because you're in a coma; one day you're this age, and when you wake up, a whole lifetime has passed you by. It's only, what, two days, until his birthday? I would hate for April 30th to come around and have him still…you know…living-challenged…"

He straitened himself and put his work down, looking her square in the face.

"I can't possibly know the answer to that. I really can't Valerie. There is no way of knowing when he'll wake up."

She could hear the pain in his voice, and she knew Danny and Tucker had been well on their way to becoming fast friends. There were just those kinds of people; those people that were just meant for each other and within hours of meeting each other were completely inseparable. She and Kim had never had that happy occurrence; it had taken them years to trust each other, and it was that long uphill battle for friendship that kept them glued together. The things one toils endlessly for are the things one will never give up heedlessly.

"We all miss him, Tucker. Don't be afraid to say it."

Tucker sighed and turned his body from her, his entire posture closed off and unwilling. It was clear that he did not want to talk about Danny, and Valerie knew exactly why. There was a good chance he would never wake up. And, although his physical wounds had long healed, she knew that his psychological ones had not, whatever they were. Closing himself off from the world was just his way of trying to heal.

"Tucker," she started again, but he cut her off sharply.

"What!" he demanded of her, meeting her hypnotizing gaze again.

She resisted a gasp at the expression in his eyes, but her face betrayed a millisecond flash of eyebrow – the ingrained micro-expression of surprise that not even the best liar could erase. He was not quite well versed enough in people, let alone poker, to recognize it, though.

In the corner of his eyes, being his thick glasses, were tears glistening.

"I was just going to ask you what you thought of Dr. Simone. I haven't really had the time to talk to her since she started work about a week back because the Director has kept me busy and I just wanted to know if you had gotten the chance to see her and- "

She was abruptly cut off from her rant when Tucker pressed a finger to her lips. Valerie was startled enough by the action alone to cease all of her babbling.

"Shh…" he whispered quietly, obviously listening for something.

He found the source of the noise: his own telephone, buzzing adamantly in his laptop briefcase. Picking it up, he saw Kim's work number on the screen and he flipped it open, confusion plainly written all over his face.

"Tucker Foley speaking, is everything alright, Kim?"

Valerie's face mirrored the confusion on Tucker's, his finger gone from her lips, but she didn't make to speak. It was quite close to midnight – there was no reason for her to call unless there was an emergency.

"_Tucker, get to the hospital now! It's Danny!"_

She hung up, giving him no other explanation; the urgency in her voice was enough to incite panic in both agents.

Tucker grabbed his jacket, hanging off of the back of the metal chair, and in a second was dragging Valerie out of the door by the hand. Valerie was taken off guard at the momentum and struggled to put her own coat on. April nights were much, much colder than the days that teased of summer. April nights still whispered of winter, if one wasn't prepared.

It took them merely minutes to get to the parking garage, where Tucker found his black, standard issue SUV. Before he even reached the tiny remote that unlocked the car, his keys were snatched out of his hand and Valerie was in the front seat of his car.

"I'll get us there in half the time," she said with finality as he hopped into the seat beside her and buckled up.

Her face was hard, unreadable, as she zoomed out of the parking lot at twice the recommended speed limit. Out on the main street, she turned the sirens on and drove, haphazardly and single-mindedly to the hospital. She silently thanked the CIA training that she usually cursed.

In a record ten minutes, she turned off the ignition and Tucked dialed Kim's phone number as they both ran to the doors of the hospital.

"Kim we're here," he hurriedly said into the phone, and hung up immediately, not leaving her time to answer.

He snapped the phone shut and with Valerie at his side ran up to the floor where Danny was, ignoring the night shift nurses that yelled at them. On the floor with all the coma patients, Tucker and Valerie slowed down instinctively; they feared the worst and felt like walking would give them time to prepare for…whatever faced them.

Valerie put a hand out in front of Tucker as she saw Kim walk out of Danny's room to meet them. The blinds were drawn in his room, and Kim was wearing an emerald green dress and high heels. Her eyes were red and bloodshot, fat tears rolling freely down her cheek as she bit her lip. Valerie could smell the alcohol on her, but Kim looked pretty steady on her feet. She chastised herself, remembering that Kim was Irish back on her mother's side and Russian on her father's. Of course the woman could hold her liquor. She'd seen her drink five glasses of that bourbon she loved so much and walk a straight line, while Ron was off his rocker at two beers.

Both her heart and Tucker's fell to the pit of their stomachs at her tears. Tucker had never seen her cry; she was his illustrious, extremely bad-ass, formerly CIA Special Ops team leader and she was crying, of all things. They just stood there, and while Tucker just looked more and more like a kicked puppy, Valerie's CIA training was working up a storm in her head.

She didn't want to delude herself too early into thinking that the news was good, and not bad as Kim was making it seem, but there was a bit of hope in her chest that was just fueled by the tiny micro-expressions on Kim's face. After a moment of carefully watching the older woman's face, Valerie crossed her arms definitively.

"I'm going to kill you woman," she said, her gaze cold, heartless.

Murder was clearly in her eyes, but after a moment it dissolved and she broke past Kim into Danny's room. Tucker stood dumb in front of Kim, but she quickly cleared her throat and stepped aside to let Tucker walk into the room.

"Hi, Tucker," Danny said tentatively from his hospital bed, a wide grin plastered on his face.

4.

The greenish lights flickered ominously in the back stairwell, the cold black metal grooved and bearing the signs of age. Every few minutes the hanging light bulbs on each landing would go out completely, every time followed by claps of thunder a few moments later. She knew the lights went out with each stroke of lightning, but in the windowless emergency stairwell, she only knew the lightning struck because it was always followed by a deafening clap of thunder, claps that shook her bones.

She was alone, undisturbed, in the stairwell of her apartment building in the Upper West Side, and though she usually liked it that way, she couldn't help but feel the ghost of loneliness settling over her more and more often these days. In grade school, the tough kids would always brag about how they weren't afraid of anything; how they were never lonely and never dependant. Sam was one of those kids, bragging, boasting, and pushing people around. She had always been like that, and she couldn't help but think that if maybe her parents had told her that they loved her just a little bit more, things would have been different. Looking back as adults look back upon their childhoods with new perspectives, she saw that the kids she knew were not brave because they were insecure or needed to prove something; they were loved, and comforted, their fears kissed away by a mother, father, or a kind, loving nanny.

She never had anyone to hold her when it stormed, which is why she now was curled up on the landing of the back stairwell, on the same floor her apartment was on, shivering despite the sweltering heat and electricity in the June air. The air was suffocating, yet she didn't even think to escape to the cool calm of her air-conditioned apartment. For the eighth time that day she pulled a letter out of her pocket and opened it, intending to read it over another time. The paper was well worn and creased form being opened over and over again, folded into many tiny squares, and sitting in the back pocket of her jeans.

Idly scanning the paper again, Sam barely knew what to feel, or how to feel. She knew in her heart that what she was accepting was what was right for her; right for the world as a whole. She needed to get out of New York, having been born and raised there; away from the pollution and the electricity flowing through the city; away from the disapproving eyes of her parents and politics. She had to get away. But, what the letter before her proposed was not just a change in scenery, it was a change in energy; a complete change in the way she had been living for the past twenty-five years.

However, there was that nagging in the back of her brain that told her that she would be up against something that terrified her. A cushy research job that she had also been offered was something that would require many less sleepless nights and less heartache on her part.

Earlier that month, Professor Lancer had told her that there was a position available in research at Stanford University. She would be able to design her own project if she wanted, or participate in one that was already created. Either way, she would have hefty grant money awarded her that would pay for not only her research, but living expenses. Of course that wouldn't have really been necessary, since her hefty trust fund already allowed her an apartment in New York City and full coverage of tuition at an Ivy League university. Living in California would not be much more expensive, perhaps even less expensive. Back in January she would have readily accepted the offer. Lab work required minimal human contact, and what she had thought that she always wanted to do – figure things out about people from afar, influence them from afar, without ever having to delve into their minds, their pain, and their nightmares.

But, as she thought more and more about that day in the hospital, the same day she had seen for the first time the demons in the souls of man, the more she thought about Daniel, and how close he had been to death that day, the more she knew that her chosen path was the right one. The bitter taste of hell that she had seen that day would never go away, even if she ran as far as California. So, Sam chose to fight it. Running had never really been her style anyways.

She was running headlong into the middle of it all; all of the death, horror, and persecution the world had to offer, and she was going to do it all on a government salary. Again, Daniel's beaten and bloody face resurfaced in her mind; it was an image that had been ingrained so thoroughly in her mind that she could trace the outlines of the gashes on his face; she could pinpoint within a millimeter where the first stab wound had been.

As with all memories, the image of Daniel molded into the scene of the crime; the image of the black body bag carrying the dead woman into a truck; blood splattered shamelessly on the inside of the store window – blood that was undoubtedly Daniel's.

Her new job put her in a small clinic that gave free trauma counseling to victims of violent crimes in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Thirty minutes from D.C., it was an area that was not graced with privilege and opportunity. Again, the logical, cold, cut off part of her mind told her that she was a fool. She was passing up research at Stanford of all places, a campus that could be mistaken for a resort, for a slummy area of the suburbs. The irrational part of her brain won out every time she had this argument with herself, because all she ever saw when she closed her eyes, was the world of suffering in Daniel's. Her tiny green frog croaked rhythmically against her chest.

"God, what did I get myself into?" Sam groaned quietly.

* * *

**...to be continued...**

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**Special thanks to DBack47 for making this chapter possible. Yourr help was absolutely priceless.**


	12. One More To Pile On The Desk

Chasing Phantoms

Part I: Mad World

Chapter 12: One More to Pile on the Desk

* * *

1.

"_Hello, you have reached Sam, please leave a message after the beep_."

With a delicate, pale finger, Sam pushed the play button on her old answering machine. It beeped once, long and ringing.

"_Hey, Sammy-kins, it's mom. I was wondering when you were coming up to Manhattan to visit Dad and I; The Steinbergs are having their annual gala at the Museum of Modern Art, and I am hoping on your presence there. I've picked out a gorgeous dress for you – it's black this time, I really think it would look beautiful on you." The voice faltered a little bit, "S-Sam? I, ah…please come and see us, your father—" _

There was an abrupt beep, followed by an automated voice.

"_Message deleted. Next message: Five thirty p.m."_

"_Sam, It's Nana. I hope you've settled in alright down there with the fat cats. Hope you aren't up to anything naughty down there in Maryland…you know I can't look over you bony little shoulder forever. I wouldn't want to see you face in the D.C. society papers. God save us…that would give your poor Nana a conniption. Also, honey, please take some time to talk to your parents. You have no idea how grateful they are for what you are doing. I don't know what your mother would have done otherwise. I love you, Sammy. Please call if you start getting those nightmares again, or if you miss your old Nana."_

Another beep.

"_End of final message_."

She stared at her reflection in the ornate mirror above the table in foyer; there were bluish stains under her eyes that stubbornly refused to be covered by makeup. Sam left her work portfolio on the floor under the half-moon table and her coat on the coat tree next to it before walking into her recently-renovated kitchen. Her pale hand glided over the black granite she had installed herself before reaching out to open the fridge door to pull out leftover tofu noodles.

Still in her work clothes – a pair of high-waist black wool trousers and a thick cardigan that she favored in the winter – she grabbed a fork out of a counter drawer and proceeded to make it to her living room, turn on the switch to her gas fireplace, and collapse on a Victorian chaise in front of it.

The clock on the mantle read 7:00 p.m., but sleep and exhaustion pulled at Sam despite her vain attempts at resistance. Tofu didn't last forever and she was out of coffee. She put her empty plate on a side table, and sat on the edge of the chaise with her head in her hands, gently rubbing her temples. A headache threatened to strike.

Since moving to Maryland, her life had fallen into a working routine that was comfortable, but held a certain kind of loneliness that came from the lack of something that had always been there before. New York held a tense electricity, where everyone felt the need to hurry and be busy, and in that feeling, there was the knowledge that one was never quite alone. It was quite different where Sam was at the moment. There was a quiet, dead sort of calm, a drab sense of sameness, with an undercurrent of neglect. It was just this particular part of the county, really. She had seen D.C. and all of the glimmering lights of Georgetown where she had found a quiet, but eclectic and cultural home, and DuPont Circle, as well as the more major downtown centers of Rockville and Bethesda that held a sort of sophisticated independence.

But that wasn't what she needed right now. She stood up to turn off the gas fireplace and went to her kitchen to brew some green tea. It wasn't what she needed either, but it would have to do. There was a gaping silence around her; a silence that no amounts of tea, nor work could fill. But she had to try, otherwise she would go mad. The silence would overwhelm her.

2.

The coffee in her black spider mug was deathly cold as she gently ran her pale fingers over the maze of cracks and gaps in the ceramic. It had been her favorite mug, and she had spent weeks repairing it after shattering it on the floor to try and distract herself from the pain of the news that had distracted her in the first place. The evidence of painstaking and untrained efforts at super-gluing the shattered shards together was marbled across the surface, her inexpertise but determination written clearly in every line of the ceramic. At the memory, she winced and involuntarily inspected her hands. Just a few months ago, in middle of July, there would have been raw scald marks on her hands at feet from the burning coffee; peeling, bright red blisters and scarred skin. All that remained were the lighter patches of impossibly soft, pinkish skin that had grown only a few months ago; ungrooved and unworn. Her hands were scarred irreparably.

A few months ago, she thought bitterly, she would have been staring at the scene of New York before her, unmoving and shocked beyond repair, watching the sun rise and fall again day after day, sleep escaping her until her body and mind rebelled and consumed her after four days. A few months ago she would have been standing in a black sheath dress, an umbrella in hand, at the foot of the freshly-dug grave of her old friend, watching the glossy black casket sink his body into the earth forever. The friend who had been the first person who had befriended her in high school; as she remembered over and over again the incomprehensible pain of losing someone so close; the pain of knowing that everything he had ever thought, everything he had hoped, had vanished.

A soft rap on her door brought her silent musings to a sudden halt. It was a chilly early November morning, and she had been counting on the day to be free of the nightmares of others so that she could immerse herself in the growing stacks of papers on her desk. They rose around her, consuming her mercilessly until not an inch of the old metal work desk was visible – the finest standard issue government paid furnishings offered. The soft tapping on the door to her office came again, but more insistent this time around. Sighing, she put her papers in a neat stack on her desk, off to the side. If someone had requested her presence, then she couldn't have a foot-high pile of papers obscuring her view of the chair before her.

"Come in," she voiced, trying desperately to keep the annoyance out of her speech, but she knew once the words were out of her mouth that a trained ear could hear the bitter undercurrent.

"Already snipping at me, Dr. Manson? And we haven't even had the chance to say hello again…" a smooth, silky voice greeted her back, and as Sam looked up she saw the familiar face that greeted her.. Her heart wrenched at the sight; she had seen that face in March, and it looked even more haunted than before.

"Please sit, Special Agent…?"

"Possible. And I would like to start off with a proposal for you," Kim said tersely, her arms crossed in front of her.

Sam raised her eyebrow, trying to place an expression of bored indifference on her face, but her face belied a frown.

"And, what would this proposal entail, exactly, Special Agent Possible?"

"I trust you have seen the news lately, correct? And, that you attended the funeral of a Jonathan Winters last June?"

Sam bristled a little, wondering what the Possible woman and her high and mighty FBI had to do with her friend's murder. He had been killed and buried in New York City, not in Washington D.C.

"Jonathan Winters was murdered by a serial killer that we have been chasing since October of 2009 – last year."

"So it's your fault then? That he's dead."

Out of all the things she had expected to come out of this girl's mouth, what she had just heard was not one of them. But in her heart, Kim felt the weight of her words. They were exactly what she had been thinking over and over again since June, hell, since December 3rd nearly two years ago. If she couldn't save her team leader, how could she have saved all those people, now dead at the hands of a maniac? She tried her best to find a way to deny Dr. Manson, but she knew she could pretend herself for much longer.

"Yes."

The young doctor relaxed slightly in her chair, cold and impassive as always, but her eyes were softer than before.

"What is your offer, Agent Possible?"

"I want you to help me find that bastard and lock him up forever," said Kim. The fire in her voice burned, slow and deadly; smoldering embers that were very much alive and hot and volatile.

Sam leaned forward and steepled her fingers, elbows resting on the rusting metal desk, which was riddled with patches of peeling, sickly ochre, metallic paint.

"If we catch him with your help," Kim started softly, her eyes serious and calculating, "I want you to join my team at the FBI."

The older woman stood up silently and gracefully, and walked to the door of the tiny office. Sam cleared her throat softly when she had reached the door, and with her hand resting on the handle, Kim turned to face the woman again.

"Why should I?" the young doctor barely whispered.

"Because of all of them," replied Kim, pointing a long finger at the filing cabinets behind Sam, "How much longer are you just going live inside a box, Dr. Manson? You have a choice, but right now you're just waiting outside the lines. It's time for you choose what kind of world you want to live in."

Sam met the passion in Kim's eyes with her own, the mask of a warrior across her features; she gave the older woman a curt nod and whispered softly, "Okay."

"I'll call tomorrow, and we'll figure out the paperwork tomorrow. Damn bureaucracy; they can't get anything set up efficiently through all the red tape," Kim said with a small smile as she opened the door. As she walked through the door, she caught the ghost of a smile on Sam's face.

3.

Valerie twirled back and forth in Tucker's desk chair, her hands steepled together and pressed to her mouth, which was drawn into a small frown. Her gaze was empty and unfocused as she stared intently at a spot on the blue carpet between Kim's and Tucker's desks where Danny had spilled coffee sometime in the past year. There were quite a few of those kinds of stains in the floor, but the one she was staring at, she barely saw.

"Is Kim still down with Dr. Simone?"

Danny's voice startled her out of her trance and she looked up quickly to find Danny standing in front of the whiteboard to the left of where Valerie was sitting.

"You sure know how to spook a lady, Daniel," the corners of her mouth pulled up slightly, "And, yes, Kim is still with Monique, though I don't think that they have a lot to talk about, seeing as it has been over three months since we buried Winters."

"How can we be sure that Jonathan Winters was another of our victims! I just don't think it fits – the M.O. has changed, Valerie. We weren't called in – N.Y.P.D. wrote it off as a routine stabbing," Danny paused for a moment when Tucker entered, "Nice of you to finally show up – what have you been doing, Tuck?"

"I just came back from talking to the guys in cybercrimes and Kim," he said, slightly out of breath, fiddling with the PDA in his chest pocket, "Apparently, we're getting a new team member."

"How come we're just hearing this from you now?" Valerie said warily, with a hint of accusation in her voice.

"It's all just gossip so far, but the word is that we're getting a consultant for our team, not a full field agent."

Valerie sat quietly and motionlessly in Tucker's chair. She was torn between her trust for Ira and Kim and her own apprehension. The team had barely been together a year, and already a new element was being added. Tucker and Danny were already having a hard enough time adjusting to the FBI. What were Ira and Kim thinking? Valerie had to wonder. Kim's team had a high-stress job and a lot of responsibility. They probably did need the extra person, but would that person be right for the team? Would they have enough experience? Would they have almost none at all? Kim and Danny were naturals when it came to field work, but Tucker was the technical brains of the operation. Valerie wasn't really part of the team, but if that were the case, then Wade Load, the forensic scientist, and Dr. Simone, the coroner, couldn't be considered part of the team either. She hoped that Kim and Ira knew what they were doing.

"Kim will tell us when she knows for sure, I mean, really…she wouldn't keep that kind of information from us," Danny added from his own desk chair, across the whiteboard from where Valerie was sitting. Tucker was, of course, sitting on Danny's desk and flipping through the latest copy of Maxim. Danny looked calm and relaxed, occasionally stealing glances at Tucker's magazine and sharing an approving nod.

Valerie rolled her eyes at them, envious of how they could just simply forget about everything that was wrong with the world.

4.

_Stupid chickens, _Sam thought,_ stupid, stupid, chickens. Why were they in her refrigerator eating her tofu? What had she ever done to them! She was an ultra-recyclo vegetarian for God's sake! She hadn't eaten any chicken things in over twenty years and this is how they repaid her! _Their pecking was possibly worse than the destruction of her kitchen_. Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. _There was no end in sight to the madness.

She rolled over in her bed, flailing slightly as she loudly and exasperatedly yelled, "Shut up you stupid chickens and get out of my tofu!"

Her roll took her a bit too far and she promptly fell off of her bed with an undignified thump and shivered at the sudden cold.

"Oh, dream…right," she mumbled to herself. The tapping noise hadn't stopped though, and Sam stood up and shook her head groggily.

_Tap, tap, tap._

There was someone at her door, tapping violently.

"If it's anyone other than the police or the President of the United States of America, they will not live to see…" Sam took a quick glance at her watch, "…three thirty in the afternoon. God, I love Sundays," she finished with a shake of her head as she stumbled down the stairs towards her front door in a gray Columbia tee shirt and black pajama pant, her hair so matted and untamed that her puff levels would have allowed an eagle to nest in her hair without much discomfort to Sam.

It was cold in her house; she didn't like to turn the heat up too high in the winter because of the energy costs. That was why people wore sweaters in the winter anyways. But now, as she reached her front door, tapping still incessantly boring into her brain, she was cold and irritated at the impatience of the person on the other side. She swung open the door angrily, not bothering to look through the eye-hole, a look of anger plastered all over her features. She looked like a madwoman and had hoped that it would serve an advantage in scaring off whoever was on the other side of her door.

She failed, of course.

"Good afternoon, Dr. Manson. I trust you remembered the time of our meeting?" said Kim, looking a bit amused and perturbed, "But, seeing as you look like you just rolled out of a pile of hay, I guess not… I'd like to not stand in the cold for much longer."

Of course, she let herself in, leaving Sam standing at the door, the cold winter air blasting at her bare skin. Kim waited for Sam to finish blinking stupidly at the street, but after about fifteen seconds her patience ran out and she said loudly, "Dr. Manson, neither of us have all day, and it's getting sufficiently cold in your house."

Sam blinked again blearily and turned to face Kim, at which point she seemed to snap out of a dream she had not quite escaped on waking up. The chickens had stopped tapping, and there was a ginger in her foyer.

"I don't exactly remember becoming a chicken, even less eating your tofu," the red head said with an amused smile on her face.

"Oh, god I'm sorry, Agent Possible…you woke me up in the middle of REM sleep, which means I was still dreaming," Sam said with a blush.

"About chickens eating your tofu?" the elder woman replied with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, yes, you see, all that tapping you were doing permeated my subconscious, and my brain turned the sensory information into something that my dreaming brain could understand, and…" Sam stopped abruptly and furrowed her brow, "Well, that's not actually too important. Here, follow me to the library; we can discuss things more comfortably there."

Kim didn't protest and followed Sam easily into what was supposed to be a den in her expensive Georgetown townhome, but was instead a room that had, instead of walls, floor to ceiling bookshelves. Custom made bookshelves for that matter, which were filled with books, except for two columns that stood empty.

"You can sit anywhere you like, except for on that bench over there," Sam said, gesturing to an old, Victorian-looking black bench with ornate silver carving on the legs, "It's an antique that I'm refurbishing, and one of the legs isn't quite sturdy."

Kim nodded and sat down on a slightly simpler black armchair that was closest to the door, but it wasn't much less fancy than the bench, and Kim felt awkward sitting on the striped black damask.

"I think changing and brushing my hair is in order; I'm sorry to have greeted you this way, it is entirely my fault."

Sam waited for the nod of approval from Kim, and fled the room as quickly as she could, to her own which was up the stairs. Running her hand through her hair in desperation, she tried to compose herself and rushed to find her long-sleeved cashmere dress. That seemed acceptable business wear, after all. She reminded herself to relax and breathe, and to be polite. That wouldn't hurt when trying to get a job that didn't completely suck.

Meanwhile, Kim felt as uncomfortable as she had felt before. Sam's house was old and ornate, but small and was clearly Sam's home. She had clearly completely redone bits of the house to suit her, and had spent quite a sum doing it. The shelves were a dark mahogany color all around, and black velvet drapes framed the only window in the room. A typical door to the library had been forgone for an open doorway that spanned from floor to ceiling, exactly opposite the open kitchen.

The red haired agent stood up from the chair and circled the small room instead. Upon second glance, she noticed that every book on her shelves was at least second hand, some could be considered antiques. There was the faint smell of wood stain coming from the shelves.

"I made the shelves myself with recycled pieces of wood I found. A lot of carpentry shops throw away usable scraps of wood, so I asked to take some, put the pieces together and stained the wood myself."

Kim spun round at Sam's entrance. The girl's hair was sleek and raven-black in the dying sunlight. Her skin was an eerie cream against the contrast of her hair and her equally dark clothing, but her face was soft and devoid of makeup, just as it had been the first time Kim had spoken to her that day that Danny had very nearly died in New York. It was the same Sam that had slept on the hospital floor waiting for Danny to wake, and it was a Sam with whom Kim felt that she could get along.

"And the books?" Kim asked Sam quietly.

"I've been collecting them for years; I buy used books at libraries and garage sales."

"That's impressive, not to mention resourceful. Ira told me you would be a good choice the moment I suggested you for our team."

Sam looked less than happy at that statement, and replied, "Ira? Have you FBI people been snooping through my records without permission?"

The older woman looked amused at the way Sam looked, with eyes narrowed and sharp like a hawk's.

"Ira Chronus, although most everyone calls him Director Chronus. He has this…creepy…way of talking. He…" Kim paused at this, trying to find the words to explain to Sam exactly what it was about Ira that kept everyone on edge, "Well, it almost seems as if Ira has all of time in front of him, like the world is an elaborate, ongoing cascade of Dominoes. You'll get used to it – there's no one alive that I trust more than him."

"I don't know if I'll ever get used to working for the government so directly, but it would be stupid to stop myself from doing the world a big favor just because I felt uncomfortable doing it," Sam smiled to herself.

"Well, get dressed then, we have to go to work," Kim declared.

Sam's head snapped up and her body tensed.

"Work? Today? What about my interview and the screening process?" she asked with a slightly panicked expression on her face.

"That was the interview, now get dressed and get ready to meet everyone," Kim smiled, more amused than ever at the expression on Sam's face. At the mention of meeting everyone, she looked like she was about to faint.

"You are a cruel woman Kim Possible."

"I'm not," she replied with smirk, "I am not, because today's Sunday. No one but my team works today. We have an open case, so I asked my team to come in today. Everyone else there is married to their job anyways."

Sam still looked a little green in the face. Meeting people on such a short notice wasn't one of her strong points. Kim smiled and looked exasperated.

"Sam, there's a reason that I thought you would be good for this job. Just trust me."

A look flickered over Sam's features.

"Did it ever cross your mind that you ask too much, Possible?" Sam asked while self-consciously patting the smooth black fabric of her dress. She crossed her arms protectively, and looked back up at the red-headed woman in her library.

"No. I am a good judge of character, and I believe that you can handle this rather easily, though it may be uncomfortable at first."

Sam snorted softly, "Right…uncomfortable…kind of like being burned alive is 'uncomfortable'…" she trailed off, but picked up her thick cardigan from one of the chairs and pulled it over her shoulders and left the library, motioning to Kim that she was ready to leave, "But, it's now or never, really…"

A smile flickered over Kim's face as Sam left the room, her chin in the air.

5.

7:30 a.m. An alarm clock blared angrily on a small bedside table. Its morning cry was quickly and efficiently silenced with a strong hand on the off button, extinguished like the life of a man staring down the barrel of a gun. The man sat hunched atop his covers, staring out the dark window of his bedroom. The moon had long ago stopped glittering in the sky, and he could see the light of dawn approaching. He had not moved all night – the clock had interrupted his thoughts, but not his sleep, for he had not slept. He sat cross-legged on his gray comforter in a pair of green flannel pajama pants and idly traced the scar on his shoulder, the one on his chest, a couple of bruises he had newly acquired.

He had slipped on the stairs going up to his apartment building because of the sheet of ice that had covered the bottom two stairs, and being still occasionally clumsy, he had fallen face-first into the concrete stairs. His ribs had taken the brunt of the beating. The rest – the other scars – had long ago been healed; it was about nine months ago that the majority of the scars he had on his body had shown up.

He gently turned his badge over in his hands. It felt like the first time he had gotten in; fresh, shiny and rewarding in his hands – a tangible token of all the hard training he had had to go through at the FBI Academy. The badge was not quite as new nor quite as shiny as the day he had gotten it, but it was just as wonderful to him. Perhaps, it was even more wonderful having back since he had been reinstated as an agent yesterday – even getting Special Agent status. No more desk work for him – today he was a real agent, out in the field kicking butt and taking names. But he wasn't – he just didn't feel like himself anymore. He used to think of his mother and father all the time, he used to see their faces and feel that fire burning in him that made the long nights and death and pain worth it; he used to see their faces and charge on, forgetting all the bad in the world for a moment. Since his coma, though, their faces were slipping away, and it disturbed him.

What he did have were nightmares. After waking up from his coma, they had come every night to the point where he would not sleep for fear of what he would see. Each one began the same: he would be called into the office early in the morning to see that there was another victim on the desk. The team would search tirelessly, and Danny would be sent to check out a promising lead by himself. He would go to the suspect's apartment for questioning, but notice something suspicious – either a noise or blood or something else – and Danny would break the door and enter.

He would find the man they had been looking for all along; the shadowy face would have a woman at knifepoint, and he would murder her in front of Danny. Danny would run as fast as he could and attack the shadowy man, but would get stabbed himself, knifed through the heart; and as the man ran away, he would hold the woman as they both bled to death together. It was always too late to save them both, and those accusing, betrayed purple eyes clearly said that she blamed him; that it was his fault. The fault was his and his alone.

Tonight he hadn't slept. Yesterday he hadn't slept. He made sure Kim never noticed how close to falling apart he really was, because she would send him home and sign him up for counseling. The counselor would try and convince him that his parents really were dead and that he had to move on. He always had to move on, but he didn't want to; he had to keep fighting because his parents were alive – he could feel it, and that feeling hadn't gone away all those years they had been missing.

The standard issue gray cell-phone behind him rang.

"Kim."

There were no formalities of pleasantries. He knew what calls on weekends meant.

"_Be at work by four today, don't be late."_

He opened his mouth and closed it again, his brow furrowed in confusion.

"_I have a good feeling about this Daniel, so don't screw it up because you can't read the numbers on your watch, or you couldn't find your car keys, or whatever the last stupid excuse you used was."_

Ouch.

"_You better be all clean and washed and, most importantly, presentable when I see your moronic face at four, otherwise I will call your sister and have her babysit you for two weeks, do I make myself clear?"_

Double ouch.

"You wound me, Kimmy."

She hung up abruptly and left Danny to run his hands through his hair. It was overly fluffed, a bit too long, and sticking up in every possible direction it could manage, and so he stood up from his bed and stretched his stiff back. He padded quietly to the shower across the hall, his bare feet making no noise on the cold, dark hardwood floor. The water in the shower ran cold for about a minute before Danny stepped in and washed the sleeplessness and strain from his body.

He finished his shower, dried himself and pulled on a clean pair of boxers. _Great,_ he thought, _the only clean pair I have happen to be purple with little green ghosts on it_. They weren't exactly his luckiest pair. The last time he had worn them, the belt on his trousers had broken and his pants had fallen down in the middle of chasing a suspect back in Baltimore.

He took care to comb his hair so that it didn't sick up too much in the front. Kim obviously wanted him to look presentable, but he wasn't really sure why. The most likely option was that the new team member would be introduced later today, when most of the FBI building would be deserted, save for the people actively working on cases.

His shirt was freshly cleaned and his black trousers pressed and he placed both garments carefully on the armchair of his couch. Danny spread out on the couch and turned the small television in the corner of the room on to the local news, which he then promptly muted and then fell asleep.

6.

"I can't believe she made us come in on a Sunday," Tucker whined petulantly from his desk chair in the bullpen. He pulled at the collar of an overly-crisp and overly-white oxford. A green tie was knotted at his throat, and the knot was slightly crooked.

Daniel looked up at him from the Sunday edition of the Chicago Tribune. His glasses were slightly crooked from where Tucker had accidentally sat on them about a month ago, but other than that, Danny looked immaculate. There was a line between his brows, but it vanished as he looked up to see Tucker banging his head against his mouse pad in sheer exasperation.

Danny just rolled his eyes and went back to his newspaper, his smile growing smaller as he read on.

"'_GHOSTS CONTINUE TO HIDE IN THE SHADOWS OF AMITY PARK'_"

Danny spun his chair around so quickly that the wheels slipped on the plastic mat and sent him sprawling on the seat of his carefully pressed trousers, the wheels on his chair still spinning.

"Sounds like a cheery read; don't even know why you bother with the Tribune," Valerie intoned from her post on the wall of the bullpen behind Danny's desk. She had a Cheshire cat grin on her face as she rested her elbows on the partition. The cheeky smile only widened at Danny's incredulous expression and his spluttering attempts to be angry with her; he was too disoriented to come up with anything.

"Leave the poor kid alone, Agent Grey…god knows you make his life miserable," Wade Load said with a smile as he offered a large hand out to help Danny up.

"Thanks Wade. What are you doing up here? I thought sunlight burned your skin?" Danny replied with his own smirk.

"Yeah, what are you doing up here, Load?" Tucker added from his desk. He had stood up, and his arms were crossed.

"The coffee up here is better, plus I wanted to tell you that your new consultant is a hottie, though I think she would have made sure I would never procreate if I had told her so. Anyone want to come get coffee with me?"

Danny smiled and nodded quickly in reply, "That would be great."

Tucker stirred and said, "I think it's about time for a cup of coffee for me too, mind if I tag along, Load?"

Wade shook his head and chuckled, "Yeah, sure," before giving Valerie a wink and leaving the pen with Tucker and Danny at his side.

"Wow," interjected a voice behind Valerie as soon as the boys had left the room.

"You said it, love," Valerie replied with a sigh, "How old is Wade Load again?"

Monique chuckled softly as she sat down on top of the empty desk across from Danny's. She crossed her arms and looked up at Valerie again, "He's twenty nine, about the same age as Kim's brothers."

"How many people know?" Valerie asked, her eyebrow arched.

Monique shook her head and said, "Only you and Kim, though I'm sure the Director knows too," Monique paused and chuckled, "God, if Tucker knew how Wade messes with him…I mean, did you see that whole testosterone show there?"

Valerie let out a long laugh, "God, who would have known that Tucker would become one of my best friends? It is funny how Tucker refuses to acknowledge that Wade is older than him; he still likes to refer to him as an eighteen year old in my presence."

Monique snorted ungracefully before answering, "Well, there's a lot of things we didn't see coming."

"Yeah, that's an understatement, honey," Valerie replied in a flat monotone before moving from her spot behind the bullpen to sit next to Monique on the empty desk in the bullpen.

"I met her, you know – the new consultant," Monique said, biting her lip and shifting her weight a little on the desk.

"Well? What did you think? Good lord woman! Why so worried?" Valerie asked.

"Dr. Manson is, well, interesting…to put it lightly," Monique replied with a tilt of her head, "She is very, very, very, scarily good at what she does."

A look of realization crossed Valerie's face, and she let out a long laugh despite how clearly uncomfortable Monique was.

"She…" Valerie gasped a little for breath, "She…called you out, didn't she! Oh my lord – and Wade was there too! That's how she knew!" Valerie dissolved into more laughter, but Monique only managed to look more and more horrified.

"My God, Valerie, stop picking on her; you know her constitution is fragile," Wade walked back in the pen with a smirk, followed by Danny and Tucker, who both had their brows furrowed and were whispering quietly to each other. Valerie ceased laughing, but still had a wide, knowing smile plastered on her face.

The two younger agents had their heads bowed as they both made their way to Danny's desk. Danny fell back into his chair, never breaking conversation with Tucker, who had placed himself on the corner of Danny's desk.

Wade sidled up to Monique and, in a lowered voice, said, "They've been like that ever since I mentioned Dr. Manson."

Parts of Danny and Tucker's conversation floated across the pen, "Manson…can't be one of those Mansons…Well, I heard she is really good at her job….Kim wouldn't have picked her otherwise…But she won't be of any use in the field, right? …No, she's just a consultant…" their conversation no more than hushed whispers above the silence of the relatively empty department.

"Tucker just wants to gossip," Wade said quietly, addressing Valerie and Monique, "But Danny seems…Well, there's something bothering him."

Valerie glanced up to Danny quickly, her eyes carefully analyzing, calculating. Her frown only deepened, and concern flickered over her features.

"Oh, my god," she whispered, as realization flickered over her face.

Monique and Wade both turned their heads toward her, questions written all over their faces, but Valerie's gaze was closed off, and without warning, she stood up and left the pen, like a cold storm.

7.

"I need a minute or two, Possible." Sam sat on the cold stairs in Kim's unofficial conference room, her head in her hands.

"Take a few minutes. He doesn't remember you, Manson," Kim replied. Sam lifted her head and stared at Kim, who was leading against the wall opposite Sam, her arms crossed.

"What the hell happened after he left?" She asked accusingly.

Kim sighed and shifted her weight to her left leg, and uncrossed her arms. "He re-broke his ribs when the plane landed, which ended up doing some damage. He had been sedated, but the drugs were wearing off by the time we landed; he bolted upright, being the dumb ass he is, and undid all the work the doctors at Columbia did."

"That's not the whole story," Sam replied, her eyebrow raised. There was no question in her statement.

Kim sighed and shook her head, "No, it isn't the whole story. After he broke his ribs again, he seemed to be recovering just fine, but something must have triggered him; he lapsed into a coma and didn't wake up until it was the very end of April."

"A coma?" Sam hissed, "You do realize that whatever caused him to lapse into a coma is probably still tormenting him now, right?"

Kim sent a venomous glare in Sam's direction, "Yes, Manson, I see it every day. He doesn't sleep very much, and he tries his best to hide it from me. Tucker isn't worried at all – he isn't too perceptive. He trusts every word that comes out of Danny's mouth." Kim shook her head and ran her fingers through her hair. "He's not okay. He isn't okay at all, but he works harder than I do some days."

"You know why, don't you?" Sam said softly.

Kim lowered her head and gave a soft chuckle, "Yes, I do," and then looked back up into Sam's eyes.

Sam stood up and brushed off her black sheath dress and pulled her opaque black stockings up a little from where they had bunched up near her ankles. She gave Kim a smirk and said, "So, It's for me to find out, right?" before opening the door to the back stairwell and stepping out into the deserted hallway of the FBI building.

Kim followed her out, but was stopped in her tracks by Valerie, who was rounding the corner from the homicide department. "I'm going to have a word with you later, Possible," Valerie said angrily, before sweeping off into the stairwell, her lime green heels clacking loudly as she raced down the stairs.

* * *

To be continued...

A/N: Please be kind and review.

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	13. Does It Remove All Of Our Pain?

A/N: Here you go guys. I worked hard on this chapter, and this is what came out. School is out, updates shouldn't be like 6 months apart anymore. I love you all, and want to thank you for your readership.

* * *

Chasing Phantoms

Part I: Mad World

Chapter 13: Does It Remove All Of Our Pain?

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1.

Valerie stormed out without warning, sending Danny a look that said 'be careful.'

"What was that all about?" Tucker asked, looking up to Wade and Monique, who were taking pains to keep professional distance between themselves.

"I think I'd really like to know that for myself," Monique said, "Valerie seems to be able to pick up on the smallest things."

Danny turned his head towards the hallway and sat up straight, trying get a look at the door.

"Danny?" Tucker asked skeptically.

"I think Kim is coming, I just heard Valerie snap at someone in the hallway," Danny said, his brow furrowing as he picked up his piping hot coffee and took a small sip.

The sound of a pair of footsteps approaching caused everyone to look up; the sly look on Tucker's face was unmistakable. Danny shook his lowered head slightly in silent laughter.

"Everyone, I'd like you to meet our new consultant," Kim's voice seared through the air and Danny whipped his head up to stare into a pair of wide violet eyes.

His grip on his coffee didn't feel quite as steady as it had been a second, but he stood up to greet the woman anyways. He immediately regretted his decision to stand; his knees seemed to resist all of his efforts to keep steady as he reached out to shake her hand.

"Special Agent Daniel Fenton, you can call me Danny," he said, an unconvincing smile on his face.

"This is Dr. Manson, she will be helping us with the psychological profile of our killer and analyzing forensic evidence from her perspective," Kim continued. Danny's smile vanished at the cold glare he received from Dr. Manson, and pulled his hand away from hers as if burned, and in his distraction, his mug of coffee slipped from his right hand, hitting the edge of the table. Danny was instantly splattered with boiling coffee, his crisp white shirt ruined. With a yelp, he left back from Sam and the quickly growing stain on the carpet.

Kim, about to keep introducing Sam, stopped to stare at the disaster unfolding before her. Valerie had been right in her mistrust of Danny's and Sam's ability to interact properly at work before they sorted things out, considering that Fenton couldn't compartmentalize.

"Go home, Danny," Kim said. He didn't miss the instruction in her look. _Go home and don't you dare come back until you're better. _Danny gave a curt nod and left without taking his jacket, his shirt still splattered with coffee.

Kim turned back to her team and shook her head. "He always seems to need time off. I really hope it evens out, I'm tired of having him and then not having him."

Sam followed him with her eyes out of the department.

"Seriously…he has more tardies and missed days than any other agent in this department." Alright, where were we? Dr. Manson, this is Agent Tucker Foley, he specializes in tech work; Dr. Monique Simone, coroner; Wade Load, tech and forensic evidence. Valerie is a weapons technician and is usually on loan to other agencies. I am team leader here. Agent Foley and Agent Fenton are the only agents under my direct supervision. Everyone else answers to Will Du, the head of the Homicide Department, or Ira Chronus, the Director of the FBI."

"So Dr. Manson, what is an anarchist like you doing as a consultant for the FBI?" Tucker said with a broad, cheeky grin.

Sam's spluttering told Tucker all he needed to know. He liked the crazy chick.

2.

He had been sent home by Kim again. Why did he have to become completely mentally unstable the moment that the new consultant had walked in? Of course the day he had to meet a pretty woman he fell apart and nearly wet himself. Well, nothing had changed since he hit puberty. She was really quite pretty, but his overly traumatized brain was still patching together the pieces before he was injured. It wasn't just those memories that had been scattered to the wind, it was memories from before he even went into police work that seemed to be lacking in substance. There were days when he would wake up and try and make coffee, but he couldn't remember why he liked Columbian dark roast, or the first time he had started to drink it.

Danny wandered aimlessly around his small apartment clutching his acceptance letter to NASA's training program. It was old now, falling apart at the folds, the sides wearing away, and the paper yellowing as time carried on. As he rubbed his fingers anxiously along the edges of the paper, the letter wasn't getting any crisper.

3.

"Alright, looking at what we know about this killer already, he's a man, judging by the strength and size of the victims, and he's extremely well trained and extremely fit. He's targeting men at the top of their game, almost on the edge of extreme success, second to none, and he takes the evidence of that for himself, leaving the victims in locations that are just visible, but not in the open," Sam said, with a skill that belied her lack of experience as an agent.

The white board in the middle of their bullpen was a maze of notes and photographs. The faces of the dead ran across the top of the board, pleading for justice.

"My first impression would be that he's taking down the competition" Kim said skeptically.

"See, I thought that too, but this is a man who can do it with his bare hands, without leaving a trace behind."

Kim frowned again, but Sam could see that something had clicked as she narrowed her eyes. "He is precise with a gun and just as good with a blade. His technique is almost military – old school, very well trained, but from before the computer age," Kim said, pacing in front of the whiteboard, "I used to run into a lot of his type when I started out working for the CIA."

"Looks like Cold War era fighting methods," Sam observed.

"Cold War?" Tucker said, "How do you even know this?"

"I've taken self defense classes with an old Russian teacher, a lot of nostalgia on his part." Sam said. Kim smirked as Tucker discreetly moved away from Sam.

"She's right, Foley. I learned to fight this way; my old team leader Barkin taught me when he dabbled as an instructor at the Farm."

"If he's that well trained in these old techniques, I'm thinking he's far too old to be direct competition for this man. Also, a military or special ops man, he wouldn't have anything to do with these men career-wise or school wise," Sam continued.

"What if…and sorry if this is totally wrong or crazy…he's taking revenge on men that he could have become? I mean, what if he was on the road to success and something forced him to take up a job with the military?"

"That…makes a lot of sense Agent Foley," Sam said, "Now how can we use that?"

"I'll run some searches," Tucker said before disappearing behind his computer console. Meanwhile, Sam saw Kim continue to pace in the space between the four desks in the pen. Her restlessness was evident in the way she wrung her hands and twirled her hair nervously between her fingers.

"How long is Agent Fenton going to be out of work? It's already been four days," Sam said.

Kim paced a few more steps before replying, "I would give him until the end of the week before I drag him back myself expecting full health, stability and focus."

Suddenly, her temper flared at Kim's flippancy towards Danny's health and Sam hissed out, "Have you ever thought of sending him to a psychologist? If anyone needs help, it's him."

Kim sat down at her desk and let out a heavy sigh, but ran her fingers through the end of her ponytail. She glanced towards Tucker's desk, where the man was engrossed in his keyboard, a heavy set of headphones on his ears.

"Manson, let me tell you something…he won't let anyone help. I can't think of anything I could do – I could drag him to a therapist, I could handcuff him there until he gets better, but he would shut down. He's just a boy who's shouldering more responsibility than a man twice his worth," Kim sighed dejectedly and put her fingers to her temple before pulling a memo notice off of the pad on her desk and scribbling an address on it. "Go get him."

4.

5:30 p.m. She didn't know what the hell she was doing here. Sam stood awkwardly in front of the apartment door in the corner of the foyer, dressed in casual attire, one hand holding a hardback novel to her chest, the other hand poised to knock on the metal door barely covered in peeling paint. She quashed the anxiety in her chest. Since when was she one to be afraid?

So she knocked on the door. Just a tap, once, twice, and a third time – a quick and faint staccato that sounded like her heart beating. The door swung open, and she was assaulted with the smell of booze. It came from the apartment, though, and not from the weary looking man in front of her, who gave her a startled stare before his face lapsed into one of resignation.

He left the door open and turned back into his apartment, picking up an overturned, empty, bottle of beer from the floor, another from the coffee table, and yet another from between the cushions of an old orange couch. Sam followed him warily into his yellowing kitchen, for the first time noticing the piles of training manuals and scattered diagrams of aircraft, spaceships, and rockets, all covered in a film of dust. A pair of sweat pants sat low on his thin hips. A soft, worn, navy blue Georgetown University shirt concealed the scars she knew crossed his torso.

He reached under the counter and tossed the bottles he had picked up. The loud crash of glass bottles startled her. His trash was full of empty beer bottles.

"What are you doing here, Dr. Manson?" Danny said, slamming the cabinet door forcefully, "Did Kim send you here with your doctorate in psychology to fix me?" He had his back turned to her as he continued to clean.

"I see that your cuts from March have healed nicely. You can't even see the one on your shoulder," Sam replied nonchalantly.

"What does that have to do with what I asked you?" Danny replied angrily. He turned to face to her, towering, and suddenly intimidating. "And how do you know about my injuries?" he hissed out, uncomfortably close to her ear.

Sam hardly appreciated his attempt to intimidate her and her plan for delicacy faded away – she wouldn't tolerate any of his ill-mannered antics. She roughly shoved the book she had ordered for him into his chest with a condemning scowl. He clutched the book and watched her turn and walk out of his front door. The force of it slamming shut made the walls shake. _There she goes again_, he thought, and instantly wondered why that had come to mind. With a confused sigh he went to lock the door, and sat down on his couch. Danny took a look at the book in his hands and his heart did a funny leap in his chest.

"_Letters from Mir_…" Danny murmured softly, "How did she know…?"

He ran his hands across the worn front cover, and tenderly opened it. Stamped on the inside cover in an elegant, Victorian typeface, were the words "Casper's Used Bookstore." Frowning, Danny turned to the back inside cover, and in a messy script someone had written:

It's time to say good bye to turning tables.

He pulled off a sticky note from underneath the words and found that it said:

Love you always,

Rick

Danny hadn't paid any attention to the lavender sticky note he had pulled off of the signature, but upon second inspection revealing, in a neat, angular block, 'When you remember'.

The address listed beneath was in Georgetown. He wasn't quite sure if the note was for him. The book was familiar though, and a flash of memory came back to him. _Dust. Sunlight streaming through the window. The smell of vanillin and yellowed pages. Lilting laughter. Coffee. Warmth._ He saved the sticky note on the refrigerator and opened it for another beer. _Cardboard. Violet. The clang of an old register._ Danny paused, his head pounding unbearably.

"_So I guess you are the student that recommended that he read 'The Psychology behind the Western Fear of Ghosts'? I like your taste in books."_

_She seemed to relax, and offered the young bookkeeper her hand._

"_Samantha Manson, but if you call me that I will make sure you are never able to procreate. Call me Sam."_

_He grinned again goofily and shook her delicate hand avidly._

"_Da-," he coughed over the beginning of his mistake, "Excuse me, dusty air in the shop. I'm Casey Whitman, nice to meet you Sam. Actually," he said, letting go of her hand, "Nice to meet anyone. I'm kind of new to New York."_

"_I've lived here my whole life. I went to university and graduate school here too. I'm almost finished with my doctorate in psychology."_

_Casey looked at her with surprise. She looked a bit young to have her doctorate already. _

"_So what is it that you're looking for?" he asked steadily._

_She smiled crookedly, but without joy._

"_I don't know. I'll know it when I see it. I didn't really have anything to do today."_

The memory stung with force, and Danny leaned against the refrigerator, sliding down slowly to the floor. His head was searing with pain and little black splotches danced before his eyes. He shouldn't have gotten so damn drunk last night. His doctor at Suburban had told him to stay away from binge drinking until he stopped having flashbacks, but since he hadn't had them in months, he had figured that he had all the memories of his time in New York that he would ever have.

But he was wrong. There was that gaping hole in his memory that was so strong and so absolute, he could feel it in his dreams, on the tip of his tongue, ghosting over his spine.

_Sam._

He couldn't chase her now. He wouldn't find her. She wouldn't talk to him. She would be so mad at him. She wouldn't let him. It really was too late to go to her house. But he remembered the times he had fought with his parents and done something foolhardy; he remembered all the times he hadn't apologized and had ignored their calls because he had seen them as overbearing and strange.

Despite all the drawbacks he could try and come up with, all the askance thoughts and apprehensions that were telling him not to attempt what was seemingly foolhardy course of action, he went into his bedroom and pulled on a fresh blue dress shirt and a pair of black trousers. He wasn't trying to overdo it, but he had to make a bit of an impression. Pulling on a pair of short boots and a thick coat, he paused with his hand on the door. He couldn't let her go like that. Not again. This time he could chase after her because he wasn't confined to a hospital bed.

He ran out of his apartment, bristling against the cold air. _Ah, December_, he mused. Daniel Fenton was socially inept more times than charming; he was a klutz more than he was agile; he tried to prove himself more than he was sure of himself. But, despite his failings, Daniel Fenton wasn't a coward. He was absolutely not a coward.

5.

It was a Thursday evening in the beginning of December, after flooring the throttle in his old black Volkswagen Jetta to swing by the liquor store and Starbucks, Danny was now standing in front of a beautiful townhouse in the heart of Georgetown. He had a bottle of red wine in his hand that had cost him half of a month's pay and bag of deep Columbian roast. If it wasn't for the guilt he felt creeping up his spine and whispering in the recess of his mind, he felt like he was showing up for a date. Why was he even doing this?

Well, because he had been an ass. He'd forgotten to save her number, he'd forgotten to ask Tucker to look her up, or Kim to give him her information; he'd forgotten her. He felt stupid, and all he wanted was for her to forgive him. He wanted to break her scowl and see a genuine smile again. So, with his heart thudding strongly in his chest, his knees a bit weak, and his cheeks flushed with cold and anticipation, he rang the doorbell.

Sam opened the door, confusion written on her face.

"Surprise?" Danny said sheepishly.

Sam snorted in slight amusement, "Well, if it isn't the illustrious, hung-over, Special Agent Daniel Fenton in the flesh," she said with a smirk, but noticed his somewhat ruffled clothes and hastily assembled gifts and gave him an understanding smile.

She paused, considering her course of action, before giving a sigh "Since it's cold and we're not about to discuss things on my porch, you might as well come in"

She rushed him in anyways – it was cold and she wasn't about to discuss things on her porch. Danny followed her into the living room, a bit overwhelmed at the barely contained extravagance.

"You never told me you were rich," Danny whispered as he ran his hand across an antique side table.

"Well, Daniel, you didn't exactly tell me you were an undercover FBI agent when I met you either. And I'm wealthy, not rich. I'm an _heiress._" She almost spat the last word. Sam turned around to face him and saw his eyes darting nervously around, his head lowered, and the wine and coffee clutched in one arm.

"Come on," she said in a low voice, "I'll make you a coffee; you can sit down on the couch and make yourself comfortable."

She took the coffee and wine from his hand, but saw him continue to stare awkwardly into the rug, shuffling his feet a bit.

With an exasperated sigh, she said, "Daniel, this couch is from IKEA, it's not a fancy antique handed down from my great-uncle once removed or something like that."

Danny sat down and watched her run into the kitchen, a bit of a spring in her step. Where had her grudge gone? Where was the fury? Danny figured she was just saving it for later.

"Danny!" He yelled after her.

Her head popped back into view and she said, "What?"

"Call me Danny."

"Danny…hmm. If I have to keep up with all these names you're going to have to give me a list," she said with a twisted grin.

For the first time in a while, he smiled too, and as she went back to the kitchen and he heard the distinctive noise of an old coffee machine, he chuckled to himself. She came back into the living room a few minutes later with a steaming cup of black coffee and a glass of red wine for herself.

"No wine for me?" Danny said with false disappointment.

Sam picked up an unopened envelope from the coffee table and smacked him over the head with it.

"Well, uh, seeing as you had gotten yourself completely pissed on beer last night, I would have to support my decision to keep it far away from you." Her tone was light but her eyes were serious.

There was a stringy sort of silence as Danny struggled with a response. "I'm sorry Sam."

"What the hell for?" she asked, "I'm not angry. There are things that warrant apologies, but you've never done anything like that."

"I'm so tired of that," Danny said in a low voice, "I'm tired of Kim giving me excuses, of letting me off work. I'm tired of – "

"- People tiptoeing around you," Sam finished.

"Yeah."

"I know the feeling. You did that when you came in. It's something about money that makes people careful around you. They watch what they say and do because they want to be in your good graces. They want a little bit of the power that they think you have, the lifestyle, and the freedom. People don't understand that it isn't anything but a burden if you don't use it to make the world a bit better."

"Well I guess I do have something to apologize for," he said with an embarrassed smile, which only hinted at the immense relief he felt at the diffusion of her anger. They sat quietly for a while and sipped at their drinks. Her house was warm, and the coffee was good, and he felt more comfortable than he had in any other house that wasn't his own – not to mention that the big rebuff that he had expected had never materialized.

"Don't worry about it. It's not like the money is being uselessly squandered. Who would think it would take that to get my family to be frugal," she trailed off.

"What-" he started.

"No. Not today," she said, her face stony, "People tiptoe around you because you aren't exactly accident proof. Maybe if you could get those nightmares to stop, you would look less likely to be blown away by the wind."

She had a peculiar way of speaking, Danny decided, and he wasn't yet sure he liked it. It was the lilt of her voice. She was so cerebral and grounded in the world of logic that one couldn't take anything she said as an insult, but he still felt a bit ruffled with the comment about his appearance. In his defense, he worked out a lot; considering that his job required a level of physical prowess. She was one to talk – he could have easily wrapped his hands around her waist. _Oh god I'm probably still hung-over, _he thought he tried to refocus.

"How did the rest of those wounds heal?" Sam suddenly asked. He sighed and put down his coffee, relaxing back into the couch. He felt her eyes on him, and so he closed his.

"Like what you see, Doctor Manson?" he murmured with an arrogant smirk.

"Oh god, Danny, arrogance doesn't suit you in the slightest," she laughed back at him. _Oh don't lie to yourself, Manson, you like the sharpness of his cheekbones. You like the way he has his sleeves rolled up and the top button on his collar undone. You like the way his hair is sticking up because he's been running his hands through it._

Sam shook her head. _I've had too much wine._

"You're not sleeping are you?" she asked.

"No, just resting my eyes, like you said, I haven't been sleeping well. Having a serial killer on the loose and being completely useless as an agency to stop it isn't conducive to deep, uninterrupted, sleep." he mumbled back, "And all the injuries from last March are all fine. It's the recent ones that are bothering me. I happen to be a spectacular klutz when I'm not in some sort of life or death situation."

"Sounds about right," she laughed with a mellow lightness.

"Why'd you leave New York, Sam?"

"Same reason you probably left home," Sam said with a shrug, "And what did you do, slip on some stairs and bruise your ribs?"

He gave her a glare that asked, 'how did you know?'

She gave him a look that said, 'it was obvious, you dolt.'

"I doubt that the reason you're not going back is the same as mine," he said, "And you didn't really give me much of an answer." He closed his eyes again.

"After Jonathan Winters died, I felt that it was about time to leave New York. I couldn't stay. I was going to go to Stanford and do research, but it didn't seem right at the time." She continued to stare at him, expecting a story in return, but it never came. The only answer she received was shut eyelids that seemed to brood silently in his dark little world. Inwardly disappointed, she stood up for another glass of wine. Danny felt the couch shift and opened his eyes to watch her leave the room. Why did he feel the sudden need to tell her everything?

The pitter patter of rain on the roof made him stir, and by the time she came back in the room with another glass of wine, he was sitting on the edge of the couch, running his fingers through his hair apprehensively.

"What is it?" she asked quietly.

"It's total sleet out there. I don't exactly have four wheel drive – there's no way in sanity I am making it up Canal Road – it's not a road, it's just turns, and everyone will be scrambling about. You know how D.C. drivers are…a bit of weather happens and everyone is nuts"

"I have snow chains on my car…If you give me about an hour or two to sober up – It's only eight-thirty after all – I'll drive you home."

"Sam, I wasn't doing that thing where people say, 'oh poor me I don't have this'"

She rolled her eyes and said, "Alright, Sir, but when I see you standing in the street with a homeless sign, I'll remember that, okay?" With a laugh she went upstairs, carefully piecing together what she had before her. Her good mood concealed her building observations. Seven years of studying psychology and she had finally encountered a man that left her with more questions for every answer. She shivered slightly as she remembered the coldness in his eyes when she had come by his place. Within him lay something deep and dense, something murky locked away in his head. If he succumbed to it – well, she didn't want to think of the damage.

He heard the shower begin to run in a bathroom upstairs.

"Yep…she'll be the death of me," he laughed as he closed his eyes again.

6.

Her work phone was ringing. Kim threw off the covers on her bed and grabbed the tinning demon from her bedside table.

"Special Agent Kim Possible, what's the sitch?"

"Possible, we have another body for you. A woman walking home from a night shift at the Exxon gas station around the corner found it in the bushes by Neal's Pub."

"It's dead right?"

"Possible, what kind of question is that? The victim is dead, yes."

"Then is there a reason that this couldn't have waited until six in the morning, at least? You had to call me at three in the morning, Du," Kim said angrily into her phone.

"Possible, I have a department to run and you're wasting my time. Get here as soon as you can."

"No, Du, you don't have a department to run, you're too busy trying to Ira to promote you."

"Special Agent Possible, let me remind you that your agent that you protect so fiercely has the most missed days in this whole department, including the women on maternity leave. Fenton also has more tardies and unscheduled leave. If your agent doesn't start pulling his weight, I will rein in your leash. Now, this isn't an argument to be had at three in the morning. You have a dead body waiting for you – since you still haven't solved this serial killer case." Will Du hung up abruptly.

There was a light knock on the door.

"Kim?" a soft, tentative voice floated from beyond the door. She pulled on a green robe and opened the door to her bedroom.

"What are you doing up so early…or late considering the work you and your brother are doing?" Kim said softly.

"I'd ask the same of you," Jim said, leaning against the doorframe, "Since you're up, I'll make coffee."

"Thanks…We have another body from that killer running around here, and I have to worry about Danny's health and about how Danny and our new consultant are going to get along. Not to mention, our illustrious department head, Will Du, is not making any of this any easier for me."

Kim sat at her kitchen island as her younger brother turned on the coffee pot.

"I think you're going to have to stop trying to force things to work out, Kim, and stop hoping so hard. Just leave certain things be. You haven't been yourself, and that's because you're restless. The CIA was good for you, as much as I hate to admit. You're angry at yourself, and it's only worse because you're sitting cuckolded by your case instead of doing what you love best – kicking butt and taking names," Jim finished with a smile as he handed her a cup of coffee. "I have to take this to Tim – we need to get this design plan finalized by the morning, and were still a couple calculations off."

"Do what you do best, tweebs. Wreak havoc on the world of rocket science."

Kim finished her coffee and went upstairs to her part of the house. After getting dressed in her usual green cargo pants and pulling on a thick coat, she ran out the door of the house she was sharing with her brothers. It had stopped sleeting sometime earlier, but there was still a light drizzle of freezing rain coming down.

Thirty minutes later she arrived at the crime scene. It was dark, but the area was illuminated by the fading lights of the pub and flashers of two silent police cars. She could see Monique crouched over a body lying on the ground, and two police officers pulling up crime scene tape. Another officer was talking to a scared looking young Hispanic woman, and yet another was standing just outside the scene, waiting for Kim.

"What have we got here, Sir?" Kim called as she got out of her car and pulled her coat closer to her body. The sleet of last night was starting again, and she could feel freezing drops of rain on her face.

"You must be Special Agent Possible; I'm Officer Stevens of Montgomery County P.D. We were called in about an hour ago by the woman over there saying there was a body in the bushes here."

Kim and Officer Stevens walked quickly towards the body across the parking lot and reached Monique, who was inserting a thermometer into the exposed abdomen of the dead man. The wind picked up for a second, and the damp hair of the dead man ruffled. At that moment, in the low light, he looked almost like Danny.

"Liver temperature indicates that he's been dead for about five hours now. His ID says his name is Daniel Richards, 28 years old. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia – I'm not sure what he's doing here. He has an access card to NASA facilities, but his certification card is missing."

"Cause of death?" Kim asked.

"Exsanguination."

"Wow…bleeding out is not common. Oh look, the techs are here to collect evidence…I should probably help while you get the body checked out."

"Kim…he looks a lot like Danny," Monique said as Kim began to stand up.

"Yeah, I know. Let's not focus on that. This is less than glamorous, but we should get a move on. What else can you tell me?"

"He was definitely killed here. Look at the blood pool from the cut around his neck. The cut…look here," Monique said, pointing a gloved hand to a shallow slice on the man's neck, "It's no accident that it was that shallow. Do you think he's changing his M.O. on purpose?"

"I can't say, Monique…but look at where he dumped the body. This is an escalation…he actually took more time between kills, but he made this one so specific. There's something really fishy about this."

"I'll say. I mean, how did no one see this guy just lying in the bushes from ten in the evening until we found him?"

The forensic techs had set up and started to mill around, snapping photos and collecting evidence. Wade Load hopped out of the FBI van and jogged over to where Monique and Kim were crouched over the body.

"What did the liver temperature indicate, Monique? I can try to get surveillance video from the gas station and the parking lot across the street…someone had to have caught something on camera."

"I'd say about five hours ago, Wade," Monique said, trying to wipe the rain from her face with the elbow of her coat. She couldn't quite get it, so Wade stepped in and wiped the rain out of her face with his thumb.

"Enough, you two lovebirds, we're at a crime scene," Kim said with a smile. The rain started to pour harder and Kim yelled out to the people milling about, "Get a move on! Catalogue everything! The rain's going to wash away all evidence if we don't hurry! Not to mention, we're all gonna freeze our asses out here!"

"Kim…" Monique said gravely as she pulled away parts of the victim's clothing, "I think we're going to have to recalculate our original time of death…He was hypothermic when he died – plus the rain makes the temperature significantly lower than cold air."

Kim looked down at Monique and Wade, "How much of a time difference does that make?" she said quietly, barely heard above the rain that was threatening to come down in sheets at any moment.

"The time of death was less than two hours ago."

"So, he was dead at two a.m.? I guess that's why no one saw the body beforehand. I'm going to get the tent out of the truck – the rain's going to wash away all the particulates from the body," Kim said above the rush of rain.

The sleet evened out into the constant pattern of rain. Monique worked diligently under a blue tarp set up to block out the rain. She had moved the body onto a black tarp as she carefully examined the victim's hands, fingernails, clothing, hair and shoes. Around her, FBI technicians milled around under umbrellas collecting evidence. Having done the same for about an hour, she was now sitting inside the FBI van, sipping a hot chocolate, waiting for Wade to come back with surveillance tapes. They had a real chance to get this right – their killer had changed his M.O. drastically enough that he was bound to have made some mistakes. Kim pulled out her phone and dialed.

"_Hello?" _a sleepy, female voice mumbled into the phone on the other line.

"Valerie…this is Kim. Why do you have Tucker's phone?"

"_Ah! Tucker! Wake up you fat, lazy – IS THAT DROOL ON MY COUCH?...Sorry Kim, we're still working on that project and he sort of crashed here after I fed him. All he cares about is the fact that I fed him though…"_

"Valerie, tell Tucker I need him at Neal's Pub in Rockville…It's on Nicholson Lane…we have a body."

"_Tucker…Tucker…here he is Kim," _she said as Kim heard the distinctive morning grumbling from Tucker, "_It's five in the morning, why am I awake…Hello, Possible?"_

"I need you here now…I've got Wade analyzing security footage from buildings around here, but I need you to help him get the owners on the phone so that we can access this footage."

"_You want me in the office or out there with you?"_

"I want you here with Wade – you're an agent and he isn't. You need the in-field training on this one…I'll try to have had the body moved by the time you get here, but no promises. You need to get through the whole nausea dead body thing. See you in fifteen minutes." Kim hung up the phone and decided to dial Sam. Her eyes were needed. She wished she could have Danny on this one, but he was probably still in the middle of a relapse of health.

"_Hello, Doctor Sam Manson speaking."_

"Manson, we have another body, is there any way you could get over to Neal's Pub in Rockville?"

"_Yes, I'll be there…where is Neal's Pub exactly?" _Kim heard a second, familiar voice chime in, "_Neal's Pub? The Neal's Pub! Kim's got a crime scene there? Oh no…me and Tucker go there all the time!"_

"Manson, is that Danny?"

"_Yes…" _

What was with her team today? She shook her head and let out a heavy breath.

"_Possible, I was going to drive him home because of the sleet, but he fell asleep."_

"I've already heard that from Valerie and Tucker, funnily enough."

Sam pulled the phone away from her mouth and said to Danny, who Kim guessed was sitting close by, "_Danny, we have another victim…I want to go in to work today, Sam, can you tell Kim that? ...Did you hear that Possible? He wants to come in to work, does he have the go ahead?"_

"Are you sure Manson?"

"_Personally and professionally, he is fit to return to duty."_

"He's not coming out here though…tell him it's desk work for a week until I'm sure he can handle himself. I want him at work at seven so he can handle some of evidence that we bring in."

"_Roger that, desk work for Danny. …Hey! That's not fair! ...Yes it is you dolt, and finish your coffee. Or did you forget that you still have to go home and change because you look like an unshaved and dirty homeless man who stole work clothes out of someone's trash? …Hey, that's not nice. So what if I slept in my clothes? You're the one who didn't bother waking me up!"_

Kim had had enough of their bickering and hung up the phone, waiting for Tucker and Sam to arrive.

* * *

To be continued...

A/N: Please be kind and review.

Are the characters making sense? Or are they too OOC?

Is the setting and plot elements as they are presented in the story clear enough?

What doesn't seem to make sense when you read it?

Is the pace of the story too fast or too slow?

Special thanks to DBack47 for making this chapter possible. Your help was absolutely priceless.


	14. The Spaceman

It's been a long 6 months working on this, and I hope that it measures up.

* * *

Chasing Phantoms

Chapter 14

The Spaceman

* * *

1.

Danny stirred lightly to the sound of creaking stairs. The soft couch groaned with his weight as he shifted to his side and pulled a thick blanket closer to his body.

_Soft couch. Thick blanket. His work clothes. Creaking stairs. _He shifted again and yawned silently without opening his eyes. _His couch was hard and unforgiving. There was a blanket on him. He lived in an apartment without stairs._ Danny's eyes snapped open and instantly noticed the still-dark sky outside and the low moon. It was morning, but very early morning

"Oh crap, oh crap," he muttered quietly to himself as he scrambled off of Sam's couch, tangling his legs in the blanket and sprawling onto the floor with an ungraceful clunk that rattled the lamp on the side table.

"Oh good, you're awake," Sam called from what Danny thought could be the kitchen, but he wasn't quite sure since his head was throbbing, the room was dark, and his head was under some coffee table that was far to stylish to be his, while his legs…_where were his legs?_

When he finally got his legs untangled from the thick knit blanket, he stood up and stumbled towards the voice that had called him. He found himself standing in an immaculate but eclectic kitchen dimly lit by under-cabinet lights.

He blinked sleepily at the open space he hadn't had the chance to visit last night, but instead of taking in the surroundings, which were orderly and slightly neglected, he found his unfocused gaze on Sam who was sitting on a barstool at the kitchen counter. Her dark hair was soft; a wavy mess of jet black that made her look a little rougher around the edges. She wore a pair of deep green pajama pants with a matching button down sleeping shirt, the cuffs unbuttoned and casually rolled up to her elbows. The lights under the cabinets lit the planes of her face in sharp relief, her eyes and cheeks reduced to dark shadows. Her gaze was unfocused but full of thoughts as she stared out of the dark window above the sink.

"Coffee," she said, gesturing to the steaming mug on the table. She glanced up at him from over the rim of her own mug, and for a second her eyes were alight with what looked like laughter. Color rose in Danny's cheeks as he noticed his appearance. His hair was hopelessly disheveled, inky strands spiking in every direction, shirt wrinkled so badly that one could have thought that he had slept in paper, face unshaven, and to top it off, he was groggy and half awake with nothing to say. He sat down sheepishly and simply sipped at the coffee. It wasn't entirely the slight hangover he had from waking up, but he felt oddly clumsy around her; fortunately she wrote it off as him simply being tired.

Sam recognized that it wasn't just a lack of sleep, but a pervasive fatigue of the soul; months of difficult emotional, professional, and physical struggle had left him tired in more ways than one. In many ways, she felt almost as though she were obligated to take care of him, and the previous evening when Danny had fallen asleep with his elbow resting on the arm of the couch, his slack, slumbering, and peaceful face propped up in his hand. She hadn't objected, but had merely leaned against the doorway to the kitchen, watching him with a bemused expression, cradling the cup of tea she had brewed for him in her hands. There he was on her couch, asleep, as if there were no other place more comfortable and homey. Sam closed her eyes and exhaled sharply, rubbing her temples. _Waste of tea._

She walked over and reached her hand out to shake his shoulder to wake him as she ought to, but hesitated. She let out a quiet but long breath, her hands poised midair for a split second. Her hands moved of their own accord; they cupped his cheek gently and pulled away the hand his face rested on; they had silently lowered his raved haired head onto the pillow at the end of the couch; they had unfolded his knees and lifted them.

Sam had picked a thick blanket up and draped it over his prone body, which hadn't stirred since she had moved him. She could imagine what he had looked like as a child, being granted the privilege of staying up late, but falling asleep before his reward came.

He had settled in, making contented sleepy noises. He had looked peaceful, and she couldn't help but brush a lock of hair out of his face before jerking her hand back and walking back to her kitchen, finishing off the now cooled tea and retiring upstairs, waiting for the dawn light or sleep. Whichever came first.

As she settled into her bed, she reflected back and noticed that her passive acceptance of Danny was rather odd. Sure they knew each other perhaps better than the traditional office acquaintanceship, but was she really so acclimated to his informal presence that she merely let him worm into her life, making him tea and coffee and forgiving him for forgetting her? Easy friendship was completely foreign to her. Out of all the people who had passed by her, sat next to her, talked to her, he had been the only one who had simply walked into the private spaces of her mind and had decided to stay. He was clumsy where she was sophisticated. He was heartfelt where she was coldly logical. He was brave where she was afraid. He seemed simple where she prided on being complicated. She ran through her old thoughts and old evidence; everything pointing towards broken friendships and alliances turned sour, her own demanding family life. The evidence struggled to align with her situation now and it churned through her mind uncomfortably as she fitfully drifted off to sleep.

"You feel asleep on my couch last night. I didn't think it prudent to wake you."

He just looked at her, methodically bringing the mug to his lips.

Sam couldn't help but examine him as a person rather than a mere coworker. Who was Daniel Fenton? N_ot a chatty morning person, _she catalogued, _but precise in his sleep cycles. Regularly wakes up at this time of day. Unperturbed by sleeping on a couch, so he must sleep on one at home often by accident because the wrinkles on his shirt are set in the same places, and he doesn't have the money for dry cleaning all the time, nor to buy new shirts._ It wasn't hard to deduce his daily routines and habit, and she was sure that despite his great intellect and character, he possessed a sort of innocence that had not died in adolescence. It was endearing actually-and astonishing. She was privileged enough to see Danny without his professional mask-not Mister Fenton, not the Fenton in the cubicle, not the ex-NASA Fenton but pure Danny Fenton.

To her he was mesmerizing in his honest simplicity.

Something deep within her inquisitive mind wanted to go further, but her thoughts were interrupted by the vague buzzing of a phone in the foyer. Danny's eyes shifted to the source of the sound immediately, put down his mug and stood up.

"That's probably my phone –" she started.

"I know," he said, flippantly waving behind him. He came back with the phone in his hand, "I think it's Kim, though I can't be sure since it says 'Firebreather Ninja' instead of her real name."

A tinge of amusement filtered through his voice, accompanied by a teasing smile.

She looked up at the ceiling and shook her head in annoyance, but with a smile and picked up the phone.

"Doctor Sam Manson speaking."

Danny chuckled and silently imitated the formal way she answered the phone.

"_Manson, we have another body, is there any way you could get over to Neal's Pub in Rockville?"_

Her mind automatically decoupled from the easy familiarity he drew out of her and with all of her upper society politesse, answered, "Yes, I'll be there…text me the address. Neal's Pub, correct?"

"Neal's Pub? The Neal's Pub! Kim's got a crime scene there? Tucker and I go there all the time!"

Danny looked concerned but not too frantic. He was probably just mourning the loss of his favorite bar to a murder for the night. Men.

"_Manson, is that Danny?"_

"Yes."

Sam heard a heavy breath on the other end of the line which was laced with annoyance and disapproval. Oops. She hadn't meant for the accidental sleepover to become her boss's business. It looked, at best, suspicious. There wasn't any recovering from this skid and Sam unemotionally told the truth.

"Possible, I was going to drive him home because of the sleet, but he fell asleep."

"_I've already heard that from Valerie and Tucker, funnily enough."_

Sam pulled the phone away from her mouth and said, "There's another victim."

He sighed, looking suddenly aged by the business but gave her a knowing look unhesitatingly and said, "I want to go in to work today, Sam, can you tell Kim that?"

She frowned at him for a moment, chewing the inside of her cheek while weighing her opinion of whether he was fit to work, but his earnest look endeared her to him, and she brought the phone back to her mouth. "

Did you hear that Possible? He wants to come in to work, does he have adequate permission?"

"_Are you sure Manson?"_

Sam gave Danny a thorough glare, and he doubled his efforts in looking sincere. She had half a mind to laugh at his puppy dog eyes and the way he sat up taller. He was a _man_ for Christ's sake, but he was as easy to read as a 12 year old boy. Perhaps she was gaining the ability to read him like a 12 year old boy. It didn't matter, really, since he believed that he was still as clueless and klutzy as he had been on day one.

"Personally and professionally, he is fit to return to duty," Sam said, rolling her eyes at him.

"_He's not coming out here though…tell him it's desk work for a week until I'm sure he can handle himself. I want him at work at seven so he can handle some of evidence that we bring in."_

"Roger that, desk work for Danny."

His chest instantly deflated and he cried out indignantly, "Hey! That's not fair!"

She gave a snide laugh and said, "Yes it is you dolt, and finish your coffee. Or did you forget that you still have to go home and change because you look like an unshaved and dirty homeless man who stole work clothes out of someone's trash?"

"Hey, that's not nice. So what if I slept in my clothes? You're the one who didn't bother waking me up!" Danny looked properly affronted, but there was a twinkle in his eye that made Sam want to tease him that much more. A quiet ease settled over the both of them. The dark outside seeped into the room, a warm and safe silence filled with the hum of a refrigerator and quiet sips at coffee.

"Did you injure yourself recently?" Sam asked between sips, her eyes eerily unwavering.

Danny didn't say anything, just gave her a puzzled look.

"Your back is stiff. I didn't notice until you went to grab my phone."

He sighed heavily. She didn't like the sound of that sigh. It was the sigh of a soldier, not a young man. But maybe that was what he was – a soldier. A man at war with demons he was too young to face.

"I slipped on the stairs outside my building a little bit ago and bruised my ribs. It hurts more in the morning after I've slept on it a while. Sometimes the scars on my back and chest ache. I don't heal very well."

"Interesting."

"Oh god, don't use that word and look at me like that."

Sam blinked twice, unperturbed, "What way? This is the way I always look."

"No, you don't. You're looking at me like I'm some psychology experiment! You're doing it again!"

"No I'm not…"

"Yes you are…you get that little frown and that little line between your brows."

"Sorry...Sorry…" she said, waving it off, and the corners of her mouth twitched up as she picked up her coffee again. _An observant soldier. _He was full of very small, but very important surprises.

"I think I should get home and change before going to work today," Danny said, "Thanks…for…"

"Save it," she said, and casually waved off his gratitude, "Go home before Possible filets you."

He flashed her a grateful smile and set his empty mug next to the sink. Sam stayed at the counter, her coffee gone. She registered the shuffling of feet in the living room, a thud and a rattle that was accompanied by a copious amount of quiet swears, and finally, the reverberations from the front door. Only when she heard the slam of a car door and the purring of an engine did she stand up and walk to the window in the living room and peer through the mauve velvet curtains. She watched him go in the dead darkness of early morning.

The house suddenly felt strange and empty, but that shouldn't have been a surprise to Sam. Her grandmother had insisted she use it.

"_You shouldn't waste money on rent when this house is paid off and has been in the family for decades. Your uncle and aunt are spending their retirement in Naples and don't need it. Your father would want you to live here. No one will disturb you."_

Her nana always knew what strings to pull with Sam, and she had agreed without too much fuss. She was right about the rent and right about her father. She was happy to not pay anything other than the electric and water bills, and send what was left of her paychecks to her father's bank account. In the end, it had been a prudent decision, for the townhouse was elegant, and had become a comfortable dwelling that she was content with. The side bedroom had been the exception, and she had redone the useless chamber into a library where she spent most of her time. The rest of the house she had merely redecorated to her liking. It felt like a residence that she liked well enough. The strange thing was that when Danny had been there, something in the house had shifted. The posh crown moldings became simple and unpretentious. The neglected books became loved decorations. The dark mahogany hardwood and the clean white walls became rustic and lived in. She went upstairs to change for work.

This was her house now, but home was a sentiment that she didn't try to comprehend.

2.

"Are you sure this is one of Skulker's kills? The cause of death is different, the location…" Sam said, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Dr. Simone was carefully photographing the body on the table

"We're sure. The precision of the stab is military and the man has to be very powerful to subdue someone like Richards. He fits the profile, but it looks like an escalation. I just don't know why he's starting to unravel now," Kim said.

"I think he's actually doing the opposite. He's getting more careful, more precise, and closer to us."

Monique started to peel away the outer clothes of the man on the metal examination table. The body was nearly untouched by bruises, and if he weren't so pale and so dead, Sam thought that she might have found him handsome. The thought unsettled her, so she put it away neatly, calmly, where she wouldn't find it.

"May I?" Sam asked, gesturing towards the body as Dr. Simone began to unbutton the smart navy blue blazer of the dead man.

Dr. Simone glanced towards Kim for confirmation, and Kim held up her hands as if to say _by all means._

Sam examined him, poking at his clothes, looking at his hands, his shoes, his clothes, and his ankles.

"All I can tell is that he was under a lot of stress at work and his father has recently died."

"How can you tell any of that?" Monique asked, skeptical.

"The man is of robust build, which is due to genetics. His work was sedentary, judging by the lack of bulk in his butt and legs. It was, however, stressful and demanding. He paced a lot, fidgeted probably; his calves are hard and stringy, his feet calloused, and his shoes worn by carpet rather than by anything on the street. Notice the fresh and faded ink splotches on his fingers from twiddling with a fountain pen. His clothes are professional, and his phone is sleek and modern, even if it is a year old or so. Therefore, he lacks the air of someone who used a fountain pen because he was an enthusiast for the classic. That leaves an enthusiast for nice pens or a family relic. It's more likely the latter because he hasn't quite learned how to keep the ink from spilling after putting in a new cartridge; it's both a newly acquired and unfamiliar device. The pen's most likely from a father, recently deceased. People hang onto the things that belonged to the people they loved long after they're gone, but since he would have learned how to properly put in a cartridge the second time around, it can't have been more than a few months since it was inherited."

"Makes sense," Monique conceded.

"There are no wounds on the body save for the single sharp force trauma to his back. He was ambushed and hunted. He was caught unaware in a city that he has no connections in. There was no one at the bar that he was meeting, so the question is why would Richards go all the way to Rockville from his home in Virginia, on a day he had probably worked judging by the state of his dress, with his car nowhere to be found?" Sam wondered aloud.

"That's what we're trying to figure out," Kim said. Her boot heels echoed on the linoleum floor as she continued to pace in the space between two empty examination tables. "What is he up to?" she murmured to herself over and over again. Kim looked up at Sam, without stopping her pacing, "I want you to reexamine the connections between our team and all of the victims so far. All of them – any connection at all. Go," she said, so imperious that Sam was taken aback.

She was Kim's coworker. She was a consultant, not her subordinate. Kim had more experience and happened to carry a service weapon, but she felt as though Kim was shouldering her with something that they had shared responsibility in. More insultingly, without much thought, they had already scrutinized every connection that they could get their hands on and Kim seemed to be second guessing what had already been established for sake of redundancy, not actual progress.

"What do you mean any connection?" Sam asked. Anger laced her words. "I was in the middle of something!"

The clicking of boots stopped. She didn't even look at Sam but dipped her head, something building within her mind, something inexplicable but angry and frustrated, maybe not at Sam but just with the situation. It took mere milliseconds for years of professional behavior, prudence, courtesy, and all the goodwill and respect built between her and Sam to be violated—harshly.

"Hell If I care, Doctor Manson," she said.

"Piss off," she snapped back, incensed by the older woman's belittling. Kim turned her head slowly, eyes widened and eyebrows slanted downwards in an angry, hawkish expression.

"How dare – "

"Am I interrupting something? Kim asked me to come down here when I arrived…" Danny trailed off when he saw Kim's heated glare and Sam's haughty scowl. Despite his crestfallen falter, he had unknowingly opened a metaphorical valve and the tenseness drained from the room, but it left Sam and Kim with acid feelings. For a moment, their eyes were drilled into a startled Danny, but dimmed and returned their gazes back to each other, allowing logical thinking to regain the helm. Both were silent for a moment. Neither spoke, their minds turning over as they grasped for sense, but neither could bury those feelings of sudden regret or resentment.

Kim didn't look away from Sam. Regardless of whether she had acted fairly or not, she was in charge.

"Whatever it was, it isn't as important as our victim here."

There was dismissal in her voice and Sam resigned with an exasperated sigh. Danny took that as permission to walk over to the two women hovering in the far corner of the morgue, a few feet away from where Dr. Simone was working.

"Care to fill me in?"

He smelled of cold air and clean soap as he stepped between Sam and Kim, fiddling with his shoulder holster straps under his navy jacket. He caught a glimpse of a deep frown on Dr. Simone's face, the navy trouser leg of the victim, and the once well-oiled brown leather oxfords of today's latest tragedy. The body was half hidden by a blue hanging curtain, but he could deduce that she was removing the man's clothing to be processed for evidence. Every couple of seconds he heard the shutter of a camera go off.

His mouth was pulled into a grim line, but his eyes were bright and alert. Kim was shifting restlessly again. Sam wondered if she knew something about the case that the rest of them didn't, or if she had some hunch that she was eager to explore. Perhaps she was just consumed with concern for all of them, but if it was concern, it was tearing away at her rationality and judgment. Sam had always believed that usually, people's sentiment only interfered with work.

"Our victim's cause of death was exsanguination this morning at two a.m., just after most of the clients at the bar had left. He was left out in the parking lot of Neal's Pub. The body wasn't moved as far as we can tell before the rain began to wash the blood away. The witness that found him said that there was a huge pool of blood, but once we got there a lot of the evidence had washed away," Kim rehashed and continued to pace.

"Kim?" Danny ventured. He looked up at her from under his furrowed brows, his voice calculating.

Sam seemed lost in thought as she chewed on the inside of her cheek, staring vaguely at the blue sheet that covered Richards.

"I know Neal's pub. Tucker and I go there after cases."

"I want you to go with Wade and look over the surveillance tapes at the bar; see if you recognize any regulars or anyone who could be out of place there."

He nodded curtly, and Kim beckoned him to follow her. At the door, she paused and turned around to face Sam.

"I want you to find out what the victim was doing in this area: who he is, anything about his life or the clothes he's wearing. I think a profile will help up pin down why he was in here."

With her unspoken half-apology she walked out of the morgue to the elevators, Danny briskly following.

"She doesn't mean to do that," Monique said to Sam once Kim was out the door.

"I don't like this whole murder thing. I wanted to be a researching psychologist, but now I'm a profiler for the FBI. I'm not a people person."

"When I was your age I wanted to be a fashion designer in New York – have my own line of clothing," Monique said, "I wanted a lot of things, but I ended up here doing the work that I do. And yes, it's tough and gruesome and sometimes…I can't sleep because I think about the people here – about the families waiting for justice, but I hope I'm helping the world bit by bit. You have to think that way to make it."

"That's not something that can be done, it's just…I don't like to put too much sentiment into my work," Sam said. She pardoned herself and floated out of the morgue. She hadn't quite signed up for this. Grotesque and gruesome weren't too bad, but being something of the victim herself or at least being caught in a crossfire of a murky war between Kim and her past, Danny and his nightmares, and Valerie's behavior. It was becoming more personal than Sam had ever imagined "work" could become, and she feared that things were only going to get worse.

"Kim! Hey Kim!" Wade called out, jogging up towards the morgue from the opposite end of the hallway. "I got the surveillance tapes from all the cameras in a half mile radius of the crime scene." He was panting a little, and there were bags under his eyes, but there was a hint of pride in his voice.

"Have you had time to look through any of it?" Kim asked. "If you haven't, then I'll have Danny help you."

"No, but I found an unlicensed camera – the neighborhood behind the pub is the only street without commercial buildings – so no cameras right? Wrong. A guy set up a camera around his house – he's a paranoid schizophrenic and is being taken care of by his family in a house less than a quarter mile from the pub. I found the camera he got past his family and they let me have the footage."

Something of a twisting smile flashed across her face as she said, "They let you have the footage at four in the morning?"

Wade's eyes were laughing, but it never reached his face. He delivered his information without tremolo or hyperbole. Kim stared at her long time friend and remembered when he actually had the heart to laugh. She wondered where hers had gone as well. It was funny, the sense of nostalgia she had for the exciting years of freelance vigilante work, an age of raw emotion, crude plans and a more innocent and direct approach to targeting wrong-doers. All lost to time, only memories left, like rain drops that fell away and drained to leave a drought of that youthful excitement and care, and waves of angst without end. But the innocence was gone, blood had been shed, and Wade's cheerful smiles were gone just like Kim could never muster the courage to cry, to laugh, to fear, and to care for anything but the case in front of her. Her words of commendation meant little except an indication that he had made progress; mechanical, professional, and impersonal

"Good work Wade – go to the lab with Danny and start analyzing, I'll have Tucker run down later to get any relevant footage – for now he's accessing the victim's work logs."

"Where are you going, Kim?" Wade asked.

"Will Du is demanding a meeting with me, it will probably take an hour or so to do ten minutes worth of work, so please call me if it's even a little important."

She turned around again, and strode back to the elevators, missing the way Wade's polite smile fell from his face just as she had turned her back.

"_This phone call better be urgent, Fenton. I'm in a very important meeting."_

"But you said..."

"_IMPORTANT, FENTON."_

"Umm…okay…We got a hit on facial recognition; I can bring the results up to our floor since you're upstairs."

"_Oh! Yes, that's good work. Good job, Agent Fenton, be there in 15 minutes."_

She hung up the phone abruptly and Danny gave Tucker a look.

"What is she even on today…" Tucker said, rubbing his temples.

"She doesn't sleep; I think her brothers might have laced her coffee this morning though, as some sort of experiment," Wade said sarcastically.

"Are you sure that this is the killer, Wade? I don't want it to be the wrong man. Kim will filet me."

Tucker gave him a weird look, "Dude…filet?"

"Shut up, Tucker."

"You underestimate me, Special Agent Fenton. I went through all of the security footage around the bar and the gas station as well, and the same man was hanging around outside the bar, pretending to be a depressed drunk that had already been kicked out." Tucker's sense of humor snaked through his words. The wan smile that quickly graced Danny's and Wade's face was, however, brief.

"How do you know he was pretending?"

"Well, because, less than an hour later he's completely sober and walking briskly through an unfamiliar neighborhood."

"It's suspicious, but that's circumstantial at best."

"He was there within the time of death window of the victim, Richards."

"That's sure as hell not _proof_."

Wade looked cross, and he pulled up on his large screen the file on the man recognized by the computer.

"Algol Skulker," Wade began, "That's not his real last name though, it's a dictated one."

"Dictated by whom?"

"Danny look at his damn file…this man is an assassin for the terrorist organization that's called the Ghosts; he's probably of Arabic origin, judging by his name, Algol. It's from an Arabian myth…"

Danny recognized the name. "Al Ghul, the Demon Star in the Perseus constellation…It means 'the ghoul' which is fitting for an assassin." a small bit of earned pretentiousness inevitably marked any of Danny's enthusiasm for his vast knowledge of astronomy, much to Tucker's chagrin at times.

"I hate it when you do that," Tucker said, smiling. "But are you convinced now?" he asked, "Or do you want all the proof laid out before you in fingerprints and DNA?"

"Oh, shut up Tucker, I have to get upstairs to Kim."

"Here's the file," Wade said, handing Danny a memory stick. "Where's Dr. Manson? I haven't seen her since she left yesterday. I didn't quite get to welcome her."

"She was in the morgue earlier, she might still be there. That's all I've seen of her at work."

Tucker saw right through him again.

"At work?" he said with a raised eyebrow.

Danny was both irritated and amused when Tucker picked apart his language. For a man with a degree in computer science from MIT, he was particularly gifted with words. He was far from a poet, but for all Danny knew he could be keeping a folder more heavily encrypted than CIA documents full of poetry somewhere on his PDA. If they ever got through this mess, Danny would make it his top priority to find some sort of blackmail material to gain some leverage. Some things, still alive within him from the days of immaturity back at high school, never changed.

"Leaving now, Tucker," Danny said, walking out of Wade's lab space.

Back in the bullpen, Sam was sitting at the empty desk, her feet on the desk and her arms crossed while she chewed on the inside of her lip. She was frowning.

"What's wrong?" Danny asked, sincerely

She gave a sort of "hmph" of acknowledgement, but continued to stare vacantly into space. Danny decided to leave her alone – he recognized her 'I am lost in thought and I can't be bothered' face from when they met in New York, and again from when he had been in the hospital. He was sure that there were some people that got offended when she dismissed them this way, but he merely sat down at his desk and absently twirled in his chair, waiting for Kim to come back from her meeting.

He gave a furtive glance at Sam, noticing her short but well groomed head of raven hair, professional yet attractive attire, elegant earrings and a worn but still youthful face that was blank, no hints at what thoughts were bouncing around in her cranium. She was pretty, but in the way a forest fire could be considered beautiful. Kim had an aged grace, like a hungry panther. Tucker had a cheeky youthfulness that had outgrown the age of awkwardness and rejection and now landed him with more girlfriends than Danny could remember. Was it professional? No, but at this point, being professional in such a work environment was becoming purely perfunctory; a sort of mask that kept their own struggles to themselves. It was actually counterproductive. They needed to work as a team, not a series of caged, unmarried soldiers that all attempted to be one man armies but turned out to be a bumbling, if not ineffective, collection of federal agents. How could he separate friendship and work in people who he had killed for and had killed for him in return? For people he carried his SIG for, and would easily fire it at the sign of danger? For people who had taken the empty place in his life; Kim was a sort of mother, Tucker and Wade were brothers, Sam was rapidly becoming a kind of close cousin, a sister, maybe, and Valerie…well, Valerie was easily that crazy aunt. A completely dysfunctional family, but it was the only one he had.

But the more he considered, the more he didn't care whether he was in a government office of what was supposed to be the most brilliant detectives in the country. The longer he stayed, the more it felt like his home away from home. He twirled in his desk chair more freely, letting himself spin before turning about and kicking off a desk to send him rolling across the carpet. A moment of bliss was never wrong and to hell with being an adult – he was Danny Fenton at any age and at any time.

A few blissful minutes later, Danny looked up to see Kim waltzing into the pen at a brisker pace than usual. Sam didn't look at her, lost in a world of thoughts, connecting discrete dots to create some sort of understandable narrative.

"That was the most useless meeting I have ever been in," Kim growled.

Danny looked up from his desk, and stood up to make his way to Kim's desk where she had fished a file from underneath a pile of other manila folders.

"You haven't put the new victim on the board. I thought I would do it while you were gone, but I don't have any file and I don't actually know anything about him since you kept me out of the field."

"There's a preliminary file on the victim in there," Kim said as she handed him the file and made her way to the whiteboard and proceeded to write 'Victim 5' in tiny letters on the cramped murder board, "– one of the tech's assigned to our case put it together; it's just field notes for now."

"Our most recent victim is a NASA technician, male, about 28 years old."

Kim pulled out a photograph of the victim, tacking it up onto the board, "His name is Daniel Richards," she said assertively. Danny frowned at the name, wondering why it felt so strange to hear it rolling off Kim's tongue as he flipped past the old victim reports, but then he looked up into the face of the man on the board. He stilled, save for the imperceptible tremor in his hands.

It was if suddenly an invisible hand began to constrict his insides; his blood running cold in his veins, making his heart thud weakly under the pressure. He stared at the whiteboard with vacant eyes, placed the file on his desk, carefully, methodically, and turned around and walked away. Kim and Sam were left staring at the place he had vanished from. Sam had been roused gently from her ruminations, and she searched Kim's face for an explanation.

"Did something happen, Agent Possible?" She had just registered that Danny had left, and appeared to have missed the reason, "Why did he leave?"

"I was going to ask you the exact same thing, Manson. But I say you go and find out what it is…maybe's he's thought of something…" Kim brushed her off and stared at the board again, chewing aimlessly at the end of a pen. Sam gave the woman a retreating glare of resentment and followed Danny to the back stairwell in the opposite direction of the elevators. It was the unofficial conference room. No one ever went there other than to be alone.

"Hey, Possible, I heard you wanted me down in the lab with Wade?"

Kim turned to Tucker as his voice brought her out of empty circular thoughts.

"Just…go. I don't care where you go." Kim brushed him off as easily as she had Sam, but whatever injustice he felt, he kept it behind his eyes.

"But.."

"But what?"

"Wade just texted me; he wanted me to tell you if I ran into you that we may have found the man on the tape who killed Richards, and that I was going to go help him with facial recognition analysis. He wants to see if we can predict where he went and therefore where he's staying in the area."

"Oh. Good. Yes... tell Wade that he did good work. Call me when you have any new information, ok?"

"Of course, boss."

Kim put her cell phone on silent, and as soon as Tucker was out of sight, she left the pen in the direction Danny and Sam had gone.

3.

He found the old and unused back stairwell, gripping the stair rail with a clammy hand and sitting on the stairs without feeling their coolness against his skin. It was an eternity for him. He studied the brick of the stairwell; the cracks in the mortar and the stains where old pipes had left damp patches. His gun was heavy against his skin, and the only thing he felt. He pulled it out of his holster and cocked it once, enjoying the feel of sliding metal and the echo of it in the empty space.

"Put the gun down."

He looked up at the intruder; the disturber of his peace. It couldn't have been anyone else. Frankly, he would have just shot anyone else for bothering him.

A man in Danny's skin looked up at Sam with wolf eyes, meandering coolly over her features, his gun cocked and wielded so haphazardly in his hand. A panicked thought crossed her mind – maybe he would shoot her. It was a mere thought, but Danny's torn gaze was suggestive enough that it was possible.

"Danny," she whispered. She had intended for her voice to come out strong and calm, but he had robbed her of her carefully crafted poise. Sam understood that emotion was as necessary and highly developed as rationality, but she had never understood before – the profound humanity in fear. Her face was collected but her heart ran amok as it leaped out of her throat.

"Danny."

He didn't move. He didn't blink. was an infinitely long moment, stretched between the second when he had met her eyes and the second when he swallowed quietly, shoving his own grief back down his throat where it wouldn't rise up to meet him.

"He's dead," Danny said, "He's dead and I'm alive."

Sam wanted to turn away, look the other direction, anything to give him a moment of privacy, but she knew it wasn't really his fragility she couldn't bear, but rather hers.

"Daniel Richards. He is…was…the most promising aerospace engineer on the East Coast."

A wry smile crossed his features and Sam couldn't help but think that it wasn't suited to his face.

"Andromeda Dan was the best in our class. Everyone knew that he would go far. Revolutionize how we saw everything in space."

_How the mighty fall_, she thought sadly, her thoughts on the man in the morgue. But suddenly, something in her mind clicked. _Our class…Andromeda Dan_, he had said.

"You studied aerospace engineering together? Who was the top of the class in the courses that you took together? Was it him?"

Something shifted again in Danny as her questions brought him to bleak reality, and he glanced down at his hands that absently held his sidearm. He disarmed it and put the safety on, sliding it back in his holster. He buried his face in his palms. It was only a second before he looked up at her again.

"'Dromeda Dan and I were friends back at Georgetown…" Danny's mirthless chuckle graced the silence. "He always said I was the brilliant one, and I never believed him; He said I'd be the one walking on the moon, while he would be stuck here on Earth, watching me up in space. But, he was the genius; it was always 'Dromeda Dan…best in all our classes. I was always second best, but I was okay with that."

There was a strange sort of quietness about the way he moved. She had no way of stopping it. Her heart leapt into her throat, eliciting a language of sentiment she had never wanted to reveal.

"Jonathan Winters was a friend of mine."

Danny looked at Sam with hard, cold eyes. She took a step backward, terrified that she had done something very wrong. The sharp look was brazen, and she struggled to push it aside. But her fear was his, and he stood up and held onto her shoulders, his face only a foot from hers. He tried to speak, but he could only make some incoherent mumbles, searching for words that he didn't have. Sam was frozen. He didn't do anything at all except fall apart in front of her without so much as a word.

"I…"

The door opened and Kim walked in. Whatever Danny was going to say was lost, but before he took his hands off of her shoulders, she grabbed his wrists. She held him together with a flash of an unguarded glance, and let his hands fall to his sides. He turned to face his superior, but he did not do so alone

"Kim, it is no coincidence that Jonathan Winters was killed in New York, so far away from the area we established, just after I left New York. It is no coincidence that Daniel Richards was a renowned aerospace engineer that studied at Georgetown with me. And, it is certainly no coincidence that he has the same first name as I do. Skulker is hunting me, and every single body that turns up is a warning to me – that he wants me dead as the biggest prize of all."

4.

"What were you doing there in Rockville, huh? Tucker told me you lived in Alexandria. Why would you drive out here? If you even drove…there was no car in the parking lot. Maybe you were visiting someone?"

Monique rambled quietly as she worked on washing the body. His skin was a shade of gray she had long gotten used to, and his lips blue from hypothermia. Daniel Richards was tall, with short, dark brown hair and that was where he looked most like their Danny. The two didn't look too much alike when one looked closer. Richards had brown eyes anyways.

"Maybe you knew Danny? Once someone tells me your basic history, I'll have more questions. You are a NASA employee…Danny has that giant poster of Apollo 13 taking off behind his desk. I think he really misses his dream of being an astronaut. What do you think? I think he would have made a great astronaut."

"Thanks, Dr. Simone," Danny said from the doorway to the morgue.

Monique looked up and replaced the blue sheet on the body.

Danny was leaning in the doorway, his arms in the pockets of his black slacks. When he met her gaze he looked ancient. Daniel Fenton had always had an air of youthfulness – it was probably from being around Tucker so much, but she knew in that moment that Daniel Fenton was as old as Ira.

"Do you always talk to the people on that table?"

"It's a habit I picked up from my old professor," she said softly as she searched his tired eyes.

"Agent Fenton."

He looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face. Dr. Simone quirked a corner of her lips, her dark eyes quietly piercing.

"Yes?"

"Why are you down here?" She took off her latex gloves.

His silence was the edge of a razorblade. He carried in the heart of him something she couldn't place but looked just a little bit like madness; madness and clarity.

"I knew him," Danny stated simply, "He was a good friend."

She then understood that it was grief that he was carrying and it was grief that aged him. In that moment, the gravity of the victim weighed in on her. It was one thing to examine a victim, and another to worry about the consequences of the victim's death. She hadn't realized how personal it was, striking deep within what was supposed to be an unassailable team.

"Sit down," she said softly, and he looked up at her with a question on his lips. Dr. Simone gestured to an empty autopsy table on the other side of the room. He went and hopped up on the table, with the distinct feeling that he was twenty-two again, the technician swabbing the blood from his fingers.

Dr. Simone sat down on a metal stool by the table, and Danny noticed for the first time her electric blue stilettos. He smiled and shook his head, laughing a little to himself, indulging in his subconscious a desire for something, anything to distract him from the unsettling matters at hand.

"What's that?"

"Your shoes."

"What about them?" she asked.

"I was just thinking that Kim wouldn't be caught dead in those."

"They don't match with those awful cargos she wears every single day."

"I was wondering about those…you've know her for a while now haven't you?" Danny asked.

"We've been friends since college. She was different back then."

"Back when you two first met?"

She paused, thinking back. "She was crazy kind of girl. Perfect, really. She was taking a semester off from school to intern at Interpol in Budapest. Cheerleader in high school, perfect grades, perfect life. She was happier then."

"So…how many pairs of cargos and black shirts does she really own?" Danny said with a half smile on his face.

Dr. Simone laughed, "God knows she can't count that high. She says they're all different but the girl can't admit that she wears the same outfit to work every day." She chuckled softly for a few more moments.

"She lost someone very important to her a couple of years ago. Kim died that day too. Her team was attacked in the same bullpen you guys solve your cases in now, her team leader was killed, and Kim was in a coma for three months because of a head wound. She used to be able to save the world – she did save it a couple of times when she was younger working as a bounty hunter for Interpol. The unstoppable Kim Possible. She didn't recover from that coma the way she had hoped and her internal injuries were so bad that she can't go out on cases the same way she used to, because of the chronic pain flares."

Danny was still and silent, staring vacantly at his hands.

"Why are you telling me all of this?" He remembered the Kim he had known when he was a rookie detective on his first case at Baltimore PD, and the Kim he knew now wasn't that person.

Her voice lowered.

"You came in here with the same look she has in her eyes. Heck, you could be one of her brothers, the way she cares about you, but she's running completely blind right now and all she can see in that body next to us is failure. Failing herself. Failing Barkin. Failing you, failing me, failing everyone she cares about because she still thinks she can save the world just like that. You're going to end up the same way if you aren't careful. Stare long enough into the abyss and it stares back into you. You are so much younger than she is, and you have some reason for being here. You passed up NASA for this job, so it's probably one hell of a reason. Just make sure that reason never drives you to the other side."

"You remind me of my sister," Danny said, "She always says things like that."

But everything that Dr. Simone had said gave him a sort of peace, and he settled for a half smile. His phone vibrated with a sudden shrill tone.

_We found where Skulker might be staying. Looks like he's gone for a couple of days, I want you and Manson to check the place out. –KP_

"Looks like the world needs me, Dr. Simone."

"Go solve this case. That's what you're here to do."

The look in Dr. Simone's eyes was clear, and he hopped off the autopsy table and walked out.

4.

"Turn left up ahead, onto Halpine Road…goddamnit, Sam, _left_!"

"Sorry, sorry!"

The sun had set about an hour ago, and Sam's navigation was at best, confused.

"Remind me why you're driving again?"

"Because we did rock, paper, scissors, and I beat you three out of three times."

"You cheated," Danny huffed, his legs too long for the cramped space of the passenger seat. The back seat of Sam's car was piled high with books and papers, and what appeared to be a salvaged lamp. There was no room to scoot the seat back to make space.

"No, I outwitted you. There's a difference. Don't you think that we should have had more backup? We're going into a murderer's apartment."

"Well, we don't have any proof that he's our murderer. I agree, it's a bit unsure, but Kim has surveillance on him. Apparently he's thirty-five miles away in Frederick, meeting with someone. He's coming back, yes, but not soon. The minute he leaves, Kim's calling us to get out."

"Alright."

"Besides, the more people, the more suspicious it is. We're the most efficient option. I have seniority over Tucker as a field agent, you can pick up on details no one else can, and you and Kim can't stand each other. It was the only option." Danny's voice was tense, clearly conveying their shared restlessness.

Danny pointedly turned his head away from her, watching the streetlights go by.

"I can't stand sitting in the passenger seat," he murmured after a moment.

"Then why did you quit the NASA program you were admitted to?"

He turned to look at her with pale gray orbs under the fluorescent lamplight, laden with a mix of annoyance and pain. She immediately regretted prying. It had seemed like a perfectly normal question at the time, something akin to, "Oh, why did you choose this college over that one?" or "What's your favorite color?"

For a moment, Danny collected his thoughts and chose his words carefully, taking a deep breath.

"I didn't quit. I just didn't go." He said frankly

Clearly the conversation was over. She should have known that with Danny, simple questions, ordinary questions, weren't going to get her the answers that anyone else would freely give. "We're here," he announced, and got out of the car just as soon as it had stopped. Sam scrambled to take the keys out of the ignition and catch up with his hurried strides, regret and a desire to backtrack already filling in a uncomfortable pit in her stomach, but it could have been an unprofessional resentment for Possible's decisions, so she brushed it aside.

"Would you hold on? I'm…I'm…I apologize," she said, grabbing his arm as he opened the door to the tall, dingy apartment complex. He sighed and looked at her.

"Sam, it's okay, but let's save this for later. We've got a job to do." He slowly removed his arm from her grip and gave her a slight nod of appreciation, before turning into the dim light of the lobby sconce lamps that cast long shadows and seemed to hide more of the room than they illuminated. It was a clean, easy place that smelled very faintly of cats and an Asian supermarket. It was a cheap place to stay compared to the lavish apartments in the area where she lived, but it seemed innocuous and normal.

They took the elevator to the seventh floor and reached apartment 316, which, according to surveillance found by Wade, was where Algol Skulker had been staying for the past year or so. However, despite the fact that they were about to enter a potentially dangerous situation that was pivitol to their case, Sam felt that her interests were splitting, one dedicated to her job, the other more deep and unsettling.

"Danny…"

"It's alright. Look, I don't want to talk about it. I've had a rough day, and it really couldn't get much worse." Even though they both knew all too well that those famous last words were empty of meaning and intention. Things could always get worse.

He unlocked the door with the key they had gotten from the security officer, and Sam followed him into the foyer. He had his hand on the end of his sidearm.

"Stay here, I'm going to check the place to make sure it's empty."

He was back in about a minute, and with an affirmative nod, put away his service weapon.

"Check the kitchen. I want to look through his coat closet."

She was glad for the guidance that in any other situation she would have resented. There was a stack of freshly washed dishes on the kitchen counter; just two plates, a bowl, a mug and a glass.

"Danny?" she called out.

"I'm in the foyer, I found a stack of receipts…"

"No, Danny, how long ago was Skulker supposed to have left for Frederick?"

"About four hours ago, why?" he called back, his voice muffled by the walls.

"Danny, I think we – "

The glass of the kitchen window shattered. Gunshots rang out, the sound exaggerated by the tinkling of glass and heavy strikes that banged from the kitchen, although there was no flash, followed by a sudden silence.

"Sam! Sam, where are you?" Danny yelled across the sparse room.

He brushed sweat off his brow with the inside of his arm, refusing to loosen his grip on his trusted sidearm. His breath came in heavy pants as he crouched low, his back flush against the wall of the narrow foyer, looking frantically into the blackness of the apartment.

"SAM!" he yelled again. A note of desperation rose in his voice. Danny stepped into the room quickly, taking in the carnage of shattered glass windows and the bullet holes littering the beige wall. A cold breeze seeped into the space, allowing Danny to clear his head momentarily and make out a glint of light in the vacant upper floor of the building across from the apartment complex they were now in.

The abrupt silence was followed by a solitary but startling gunshot that shattered the drywall with a large puff of dust just around the corner from Danny's head. If he hadn't been crouching, the bullet might have exited where Danny's head rested. He was now deathly still, eyes quivering and gun shaking slightly from the pure adrenaline, but after a moment, only more silence. It was gone as soon as it came.

Danny slowly felt the burn of his muscles being coiled up slowly recede, followed by a outpouring of sweat upon his forehead and heavy breathing as his blood stopped boiling and mind began to take over from his survival instinct. Then panic struck again.

"Sam…for the love of God, Sam, answer me!"

He was responsible for her. He was a federal agent responsible for bringing a civilian to the apartment of a serial killer. The implication began to dawn upon him with all their terrible gravity. If she had been knocked out cold, he wouldn't forgive himself. If she had died, he would never forgive the man who was responsible for her death, and wouldn't stop hunting him until he was able and then more. Sam had quickly become an integral part of his life, part of what he clung onto as good, but more than that, Danny had blood on his hands already and was stripped of reservations about his own life. Someone was going to pay dearly when Danny got out of this mess, and not just with their life.

Several minutes passed in silence before Danny decided it would be safe to move, despite his need to find her. He crawled low to the ground, moving towards the kitchen where he had seen her go before he had been distracted by a stray receipt on the entry table and the first shot had rung out.

"Oh god…" he breathed out once he reached the entrance of the kitchen, and scrambled to her body.

She was sitting on the linoleum, her back pressed to the refrigerator. Her eyes were vacant and a line of blood trickled from her temple.

"Sam…oh god, Sam…"

"I wish you would stop talking, I have quite the headache," she whispered, her violet eyes shifting towards his panicked face.

Danny froze at the sound of her voice, stared at her incredulously and then He let out a half sob, half laugh, shifting to examine her head wound. She hissed slightly as he traced his fingers from the cut on her cheekbone to the rapidly forming bruise on her brow.

"I heard the gunshot and scrambled for cover." She said with her voice shaky but relieved, a partially hysterical chuckle hidden behind her shaky words. "I think I must've slipped and hit my head on the counter," she said, her eyes gesturing towards the counter to the left, where a dark smear of blood stained the yellowing plastic.

"I thought you were dead," he said with a forced whisper, trying to put on a scolding sort of face, but the humor didn't reach his eyes. Sam only gave a small, but reassuring smile.

"I blacked out for a bit. I thought I heard you yelling my name, but my ears were ringing so I couldn't be sure."

Her eyes wandered absently, but she suddenly grabbed onto his arm.

"You've been shot."

He looked down at his shoulder, finally noticing the discoloration and the tear in his coat.

"Brilliant observation," he said, a stillness settling over his features as he unfolded his legs from their cramped crouch and sat down on the floor.

"Shut up, you dolt."

"I wish you would, once in a while," he muttered.

Their conversation was half hearted but necessary. The apartment was properly cold now, all the heat escaped through the shattered windows. Assassins were always so inconsiderate.

"Did you call the police?" she breathed out, her eyelid drooping from either pain or exhaustion – he couldn't tell which yet.

"Gunshots are quicker than any phone call."

He held onto his bleeding arm. A bullet had only grazed his shoulder, but there were still l growing stains of wet and warm blood staining his clothes. He was numb to the pain and only felt the heat of his own body that was beginning to finally catch up with his mental and physical exertion. The pain began to seep into his mind and he clenched his teeth, but still looked into Sam's eyes with vindicated relief.

"I think I could use a coffee later, what do you think?"

"I think that's a fantastic idea," she said with a laugh, "though I'm sure the police will have plenty of questions. Not to mention that we'll have to get checked out by the EMT's. We'll probably both have to go to the hospital. Kim will give us hell."

"I think we could sneak around everyone."

"Kim would have a stroke."

"Possible would, wouldn't she?"

They both were reduced to soft but impulsive giggles.

"Can you imagine…" Danny said, trying to hold back a throaty laugh.

Sam did her best imitation of Kim's reaction before bursting into a laugh that caused her to get a bit dizzy and knock the back of her head on the refrigerator. They were silent for a moment, Danny's eyes full of concern, before she began to crack up again.

"God…we can't giggle! We're at a crime scene!" Danny said between laughs.

"I know!" she replied with her own hysterical laughter, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.

He looked at her, laughing, and she became an entirely different person. It was like looking at a painting up close the whole time and suddenly stepping back and discovering that it was quite a new thing. She was simply herself, an anomaly, and even if suddenly the world became black or white; and if instead of the mad churning of the ocean in her head there was a prism of joy and pain crisply reflected, he might have been surer of what he wanted to think of her or he might have abandoned the endeavor for lack of choice. The untamed reality of her was that there was no road right entirely.

The missed sound of sirens arrived less than a minute later. In such close quarters neighbors were bound to have overheard the gunshots and have been surprised. It wasn't a posh area, but it was by no means a dangerous and degraded area. The commotion set the night ablaze with the surreal effect of the red and blue strobe flashers and joining the sounds of far off aircraft and cars with the sounds of CV radios and the running diesel engine of the Ford E-series ambulances. Sam and Danny were taken down to the street where the paramedics quickly stitched up Danny's grazed shoulder. Sam took longer since she was fussing in the other ambulance.

"_I am not in shock! There is absolutely no reason for me to have this ridiculous blanket on me!" _

"_Miss Manson – "_

"_It's Doctor Manson, thank you. I insist that you remove this horrible thing from me at once! You are wasting your time and mine. I only have a small bruise on my head. I hardly think it warrants hospitalization."_

, "You've got a feisty one there. I don't have a clue how you put up with her." Danny's good humored paramedic said. Danny snorted

"She's brilliant, but she's an idiot." The pain in his arm set his teeth on edge and he wasn't really in the mood for easy laughter.

"_I am not in shock! I don't have a concussion! I have a degree in neurology and a doctorate in psychology; I think I know when I have a concussion!"_

"Oh god no…now she's being deliberately obtuse. I'm sorry, are you done patching me up? I think we might have a murder on our hands really soon."

"By all means…I don't want to be scraping Sally's brains off the road."

"Thanks."

"It's my job."

The paramedic patted him on a shoulder with a smile before turning away while Danny wrapped his own blanket around his shoulders and walked over to Sam's ambulance, peering through the open doors and into the bright medical compartment.

"Sam!"

She didn't pay him any attention, and instead kept berating the paramedic named Sally who wore a forced smile.

"Sam! Sam, goddamn it, shut up!"

Her head finally turned to him and her irate face turned to something that looked like half-hearted and annoyed concern.

"Did he do an awful job of stitching you up to? I hope not, your wound was much more serious than mine, which this paramedic seems to not understand since I'm _fine_ and would very much like to _leave_…"

"I'm so sorry about her," Danny said to Sally, "But I can take her off your hands for you."

"I'm sorry Sir," Sally said resentfully, eyeing her belligerent patient, "but if you're not next of kin we can't let you take her."

"I'm not taking her, don't worry. I just think it might be better if you just left her with me; she's had quite a shock."

He paused, fishing around in his pocket for a moment before he found his FBI badge, "She's my partner; I'm responsible for her. I do need to get back to my superior after this. She should be here shortly; this case is under our jurisdiction."

The woman peered at his badge for a moment then nodded, leaving Danny and Sam sitting alone inside the ambulance. He felt her eyes on him for a moment and he turned his head to look at her.

"What?"

She stared at him, a confused but also almost proud smirk on her face.

"Do you enjoy flashing your badge at people?"

He knew that she already knew the answer.

"Oh yes," he said, pulling his warm but scratchy orange blanket closer. It would go nicely with his couch, he thought.

"Possible is going to be quite upset."

"Did you end up getting anything, though?"

She sighed and closed her eyes tight, bracing herself against the throbbing in her temple.

"He's not coming back," she said rubbing her eyes gingerly.

"What?"

"He's gone for good."

"The place wasn't empty. I found a coat with a couple of receipts, and the bedroom still had one drawer full of clothes."

"Plates."

"What?"

"He washed the plates."

"Well, yeah, usually people wash their plates after they eat, and usually killers like Skulker keep tidy so they can move quickly, but there was still stuff left."

"There was no trash in the trashcan; no new bag. Who takes out all of their trash out on a day when there isn't going to be a trash pickup for another three or four days, and then doesn't put a new bag in right after taking the old one out?"

"Are you sure?" he asked with a climbing seriousness. His eyes narrowed as she looked at him with pursed lips and a furrowed brow.

"_Fuck_," he hissed, dropping his head in his hands. He roughed up his hair in agitation before taking his cell phone out of his pocket and dialing what could only be Kim.

"It's me…yes, we're all right…Look, Kim, he's gone. That was our only chance and now he's on the move again…I gave my statement to MCPD; Sam's got herself a concussion though, so she needs a ride home…yeah that might take a while; I'll just have Tucker follow in my car."

There was a long pause. Danny's jaw was clenched, a vein showing itself in his temple.

"…No, Kim. _No_. I will tell you right now, it wasn't. I'll see you tomorrow."

He hung up the phone and hopped out of the ambulance.

"Let's take you home, Sam," he said. He checked out with the paramedics before he and Sam made their way back to her car. They were safe for now.

4.

"Home so late…what would your parents think of that, Daniel Fenton?"

Danny flipped the switch, turning on the living room lights. As they slowly brightened to a bleak yellowish white, he saw in the half light the figure of a tall and broad man sitting on his old orange couch, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, absently cleaning the silencer on a gun. Danny's hand went to his sidearm and he whipped it out, the nozzle expertly pointed at the intruder. Skulker casually pointed his own gun at Danny. The door to the apartment swung closed lazily behind them.

"My parents are dead."

Skulker grinned and in what would have been a welcoming fashion, beckoned Danny closer.

"Sit, sit. Make yourself at home."

"Why the hell are you in my house?" Danny demanded, in a mesmerized trance that blocked out his instinct to survive, like a moth drawn to a flame. His voice was cold but wavered with anger.

"To kill you, obviously. Your parents might miss you, your sister too. Shame."

"My parents are dead, Skulker," Danny said with a hiss, and he steadied his trembling gun hand by placing the other on top of it.

"So you feel it then? In your heart, I mean. They say when you lose a loved one that has been missing for years that you can feel it."

"Everyone says my parents are dead, so I think that means they are."

The assassin chuckled low in his chest, deep and resonating and sinister.

"You are a rather convincing liar, but I know better. I pride you on your bravery, child. A bit different than your dear old mother – she was the arguing type. Your father was quiet but worried when your mother couldn't see."

His anger surged within him. He had lived with vengeance, pain, and hope in his heart for a long time, but he knew that this man – this killer – had information, and that he wouldn't kill him yet. Danny unbuttoned his coat and tossed it aside and tucked his gun back into his sidearm holster, walking up to the man on the couch.

"You killed Dan, you killed Jon Winters, and all those other people. What the hell do you know about my parents?" he growled out, his voice low and dangerous.

"They didn't give in quietly, that's what I know. You had a nice house, I remember. I'm sorry about what I did to them and to your family."

Danny l turned his back on the man who had taken his parents. It felt like something in his mind had snapped out of reality the minute he had walked through the door. He took off his blazer and rolled up his shirtsleeves before sitting down in the chair across the coffee table from the couch. Danny's anger overcame his fear, and the trembling of his hands was from the urge to snap the neck of the intruder in his house. But Danny wasn't stupid, and he wasn't a coward. There was an assassin in his house, and he hadn't been killed yet. He had time to talk.

"Are you going to kill me? Torture me and then kidnap me like you did my parents? What do you want from me? I'm only an FBI agent – my parents have information, while I have nothing but that ugly yard-sale couch and a couple of my old university textbooks."

"Child, you cannot possibly think that I came after your parents because I wanted something. I wanted some trophies and reward, but from my employers, not from your paranoid parents."

"They had every right to be paranoid, seeing as the worst happened."

Skulker stared Danny hard in the face. The empty verdigris eyes in his sunken sockets flared with something – an emotion Danny couldn't place.

"No, child, the worst did not happen."

Skulker steepled his hands, revealing the tattoo on his left wrist. They were astronomical coordinates with a date and time. Years of staring at the constellations and his nose pressed in books that left his schoolwork abandoned, Danny recognized the star.

"Chara."

The assassin smiled. It was quiet, silent, barely there and infinitely sad. Danny closed his eyes in understanding.

"The second star in Canes Venatici. Greek for 'joy'," Danny said, opening his eyes again.

"She was. That's why I am here, child."

"That's no explanation. Why exactly are you here? Following me? Invading my home?" The aggression in his voice was barely contained. Danny knew his motives, he understood Skulker's grief. He had lost a young daughter like Danny had lost his family and his friends. But the man was still an assassin.

"I am going to try and kill you, child. You will try and kill me in return, you will not succeed, and then I shall be taken to prison."

"Why?"

He stood up, impressively tall in the diminished space of Danny's apartment.

"I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love."

* * *

To be continued...

A/N: Please be kind and review.

Are the characters making sense? Or are they too OOC?

Is the setting and plot elements as they are presented in the story clear enough?

What doesn't seem to make sense when you read it?

Is the pace of the story too fast or too slow?

Special thanks to DBack47 for making this chapter possible. Your help was absolutely priceless.


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